BERGEIJK – For one day, Erwin Kivits was the best player in the Dutch league three-cushion this Sunday. The 44-year-old player from Mierlo, Brabant, was even the better of Frédéric Caudron, Dion Nelin, and other star players in the second competition round. Erwin Kivits finished the 40 in 11 innings, his best game ever. The secret? “I don't have a secret,” he assured. ’’Or maybe I do have: I practice only once in a week, nothing more than that. Besides, I'm far too busy at work.” Erwin Kivits is commercial director at Security, a company in Dordrecht with 350 employees.
The Dutch premier league, which has two leaders after Sunday, put Erwin Kivits in the spotlight with his match against Stefan Galla: 40-15 in 11 innings, highest run 13. The game got off to a smooth start with Kivits leading 25-4 in 3. The Brabant revelation then consolidated his lead. “I’m especially happy for our team that we have earned our first point.” Marco Janssen was the other winner in the match against Bousema, last season's cup winner. Erwin Kivits: “It was twice as nice that I played so well because Raymond Ceulemans was here as a fan. Because of him, the legend, I started playing billiards.”
Erwin Kivits, not the easiest player to meet for an interview, can safely be called one of the new Dutch sub-top players in the premier league. Last year, he played his first Masters and finished fifth. In his previous match against Dick Jaspers, the world-class player started with 20-5 in two innings, but Kivits later shone with a run of 14. “In today's match against Galla, I was able to make three high runs before the break.” Kivits has no explanation for this rapid progress. “The only thing I can think of is that I no longer feel any pressure since I only practice that one evening.” Kivits was already at 36 in the eighth inning this Sunday. “Then I felt a little pressure to make it in that magical tenth inning.”
The premier league, the Kozoom league, has had a somewhat surprising course in the first two weeks with some notable matches. Dick Jaspers, for example, started with two losses, last week against Jean Paul de Bruijn, this afternoon against Eddy Merckx 40-22 in 27, a below-average score for the world number 1.
Frédéric Caudron had no trouble at all with Jean van Erp (40-22 in 15), Dion Nelin not against Raimond Burgman (40-16 in 16), Roland Forthomme was much stronger than Jean Paul de Bruijn at another location (40-19 in 23), and Glenn Hofman just managed to finish against Rob Lamboo with 10 (40-37 in 30).
Cues&Darts was a comfortable winner with 8-0 against Harwig, STZ Zundert with 8-0 against Dallinga. Cues&Darts and Aartsbouw are the teams with maximum match points out of two games. Aartsbouw beat Paperclip 6-2, thanks in part to Merckx against Jaspers. Cues&Darts excelled in consistency with Hofman, Philipoom, Wilkowski, and De Kok, who won in 30, 24, 24, and 29 innings. Barry van Beers and Wesley de Jaeger were the two winners alongside Merckx for the Aartsbouw team.
Zundert rounded off to 8-0 thanks to Forthomme against De Bruijn. Sam van Etten and Sergio Jimenez were excellent winners against De Backer and Van Acker in 26 and 24.
For SIS, Raymund Swertz and Martien van der Spoel secured one point against Babbelz, both winning in 28. Team Eekhoorn earned its third point by defeating RCN Nieuwegein, with Polychronopoulos narrowly defeating Christiani (40-27 in 35) and Peter Ceulemans defeating Valentijn 40-23 in 29.
In the match with Erwin Kivits as the big man, the score remained 4-4. Jeffrey Jorissen won for Bousema against Bart Ceulemans with 40-24 in 28, Martin Horn was much stronger than Tom Löwe in the German clash: 40-22 in 24.