ANDERNOS - The French teams of Soissons, Blois Doozy and Intermarché were the big winners on the second match day of the team competition this week. The reigning French champion, the Soissons team, won by a resounding 8-0 in the away match against Saint-Quentin with a team average 2.025 (without Frédéric Caudron)! In their stronghold of Blois, the home team (without leader Sameh Sidhom) managed to win 5-3 against Andernos despite a higher team average for the losers (1,300 vs 1,400). Intermarché had a good day by beating Douarnenez 8-0 at home. Colmar played a draw at Albert on Friday evening.
At Saint-Quentin, Mikael Devogelaere was on target again in the 1st session against Nathan Duriez. At the break, the Soisson player led 20-13 in 14 before finishing it off with 15-2-3 in the 17th for a final score 40-14 (2,353). Pierre Soumagne beat Kevin Perrotin 40-23 in 27 innings (1,481), giving this duo the 4 match points with 1,818!
In the 2nd session, Eddy Merckx and Johan Loncelle fought an exciting battle, which Loncelle lost: 40-38 in 18 (2,222/2,111). Loncelle came close to an equalizer, but the final victory was already secured for Soissons when Eddy Merckx scored his 40th point. At the other table, Jérémy Bury led from the first innings against world number one Dick Jaspers. He won 40-27 in 17 (2,353). The team achieved an impressive team average of 2.025!
At Douarnenez, in the same Group A, the Breton players lost 0-8 with an average score of almost 1 against Intermarché, which secured its first win of the season with almost 1,200. Francis Connesson beat Grégory Le Deventec 40-30 in 32 with a series of 10. Marc Boingnères won the match egen Vincent Lelièvre 40-38 in 46. Frédéric Mottet and Nikos Polychronopoulos (run 12) followed up their victory by beating Francis Forton and Steven Van Acker 40-31 in 30 and 40-34 in 26 respectively.
Soissons leads Group A with 4 points and 1.652, Intermarché is 2nd with 2 points (10 individual points) and 1.057, Saint-Quentin is 3rd with 2 points (8 individual points) and 1.230, Douarnenez Prevalrisk closes the row with no individual points and an average of 0.955.
There was a nice atmosphere in Group B when Blois hosted Andernos. In the 1st session, Tolgahan Kiraz and Roland Forthomme played a draw in 36 innings, while Jérôme Barbeillon won over Fabrice Puigvert 40-20 in 28 innings. The Girondins led 3-1 at halftime. Then it was the turn of Marco Zanetti against Glenn Hofman, followed by Maxime Panaia against Gwendal Maréchal. The home team needed to win at both tables to claim victory. The Italian got off to a strong start against Hofman with 22-3 in 4/3 innings at the break, and 26-11 in 11 moments later. Maxime Panaia did the same on the other table, quickly taking a 16-point lead (20-4 in 7/6)!
Gwendal Maréchal made up some of the deficit, but Maxime Panaia proved unstoppable and stayed ahead 40-36 after 22 innings to put his team at 3-3 after three games . Earlier, a run of 11 by Hofman had restored the balance , but Zanetti responded and still led 37-28 after 19 innings. Hofman scored another 10 in the 20th inning and the end of the match fell in his favour: 40-38 in 22, so Blois Doozy recorded a magnificent 5-3 victory! 1,296 for Blois and 1,425 for Andernos.
Finally, Colmar logically took 1 point from visiting Albert on Friday, with both teams playing around 1,200. The head-to-head match between Peter Ceulemans and Ruben Legazpi was the best match of the day. Legazpi started 4-5-8-5-2 and took the lead at the break with 24-11 from 5. In the 7th inning, Ceulemans replied with 10 and came back to within 3 points. In the 12th, the Belgian player regained the lead with 28-26 in 11 and Legazpi followed with 5-5-2-2 to win 40-29 in 16 (2,500).
Jef Philipoom and Sergio Jimenez played to a draw, with the Catalan leading 36-31 in 23 innings to the despair of the Albertian crowd, who were expecting a home defeat. But in the last 3 innings, to the relief of his fans, Philipoom led 1-3-5 while Jimenez scored 0-0-1: 40-37 in 26 innings! The result 4-4 between the two teams.
In the standings, Albert remains on top with 3 points (10 individually) ahead of Blois Doozy with 3 points (9 individually), Colmar is 3rd and also unbeaten with 2 points and Andernos is last with no match points. The averages of these 4 teams in order of ranking: 1,290, 1,279, 1,256, 1,293!
Matchday 3 will be played on 17 January 2025.