3-Cushion
LOMMEL - In his own tournament, where he spent so many hours of work the last days before the start, Eddy Leppens put a major step on his way to the quarter finals tonight. For his own audience Leppens won his first match against Johan Claessen with a lot of courage and in his best form: 40-12 in 19 innings.
Leppens showed himself superior in his first appearance of the day. He ran far away from his opponent, former balkline specialist Claessen, who stopped as the federation trainer of young talents in the Netherlands and is more focused on three-cushion now. But Claessen had a serious startup problem in his first match.
The match missed all forms of tension, because Leppens played on a much higher level than Claessen. Leppens weaved whole the match around two average, built up a big advantage and finished without any concerns.
Davy Havere van Havere is the next opponent of group leader. The youngest player of the four defeated Francis Forton 40-36 in 30 innings. The small Bruxellois lacked the power to attack in the crucial last stage of the match.
Forton was the player with the highest run in the Ves tournaments this year. The number six of the Belgian ranking shone with a run of 21 in Sint Niklaas. Tonight in his first match Forton couldn't impress.
He was in balance with his opponent untill the last innings, then the Van Havere, a 29-year-old player from Capellen, slipped away and won 40-36.