BORDEAUX - The applause from the French crowd accompanied Jérémy Bury's unexpected exit. The star of the 3-cushion summer, who had victories in New York and Guri, was in a comfortable position (40-33) when his Belgian opponent, not spoiled with World Championship success since 2010, burst his bubble. Eddy Leppens raised his cue in the air after a triumphant equalizing run of seven, which gave him the group win on average.
The World championship in the Palais des Congrès had its third and final day of qualification, with sixteen group winners and 32 players who can pack their bags now. Torbjörn Blomdahl, who crushed Ramon Rodriguez in the home stretch, Eddy Leppens, who pulled the trigger against French hero Jérémy Bury and Jérôme Barbeillon with a spectacular win over Frédéric Caudron were the most notable winners on the "decision day".
Murat Naci Coklu was the last finisher, with a miraculous escape against Jung-Han Heo (40-40), just enough to qualify as group winner. Marco Zanetti was the best player of the day, he won in only 14 innings. Tayfun Tasdemir, who had played so poorly on the opening day, was almost as good as the Italian in stages the evening round, when he beat Quoc Nguyen Nguyen. The Turk finished with runs of twelve and five, recovering from the first day with 40-19 in 15.
Dani Sánchez had built up a monster lead (he had 25 after 3 innings) and in the late stages needed to work very hard to even draw with French substitute player Pierre Soumagne. Semih Sayginer, after his flawless opening match in 10 innings, now overcame last year's runner-up Dong Koong Kang.
Last year, in the same Palais des Congrès, four Koreans made it into the final sixteen. This year, the Turks are leading the way with three players (Sayginer, Coklu, Tasdemir), there are two Belgians (Merckx and Leppens), two Koreans (Haeng Jik Kim and Jae Ho Cho) and surprisingly, two Colombians (Robinson Morales and Huberney Cataño).
Jérémy Bury will not forget his deciding match against Eddy Leppens any time soon. His fierce start with nine and a 19-6 lead after 5 innings got the French crowd all fired up. But in the second part of the match, Leppens fought back like a true Red Devil. The scoreboard went to 31-31 and tension started to boil. Bury was the first to make a run for the line, with a five. He put the score on 39-31 and when he finished, it was 40-33.
Eddy Leppens: ,,I kept believing, because I had such an unlucky exit to the tournament last year, that couldn't happen twice.'' The Belgian calmly took to his task, kept scoring even from tricky positions, and was absolutely ecstatic when he had equalized and knew the place in the last sixteen was his. Dani Sánchez had done it earlier in the day against Pierre Soumagne, and Torbjörn Blomdahl with his runs of seven and four gave Leppens the example for his own magic finish.
Murat Naci Coklu would copy that against Jung-Han Heo, who had made a great comeback in the match but missed match point twice, giving the winner of "La Baule" three chances to get to the finish first (40-40 in 25). Heo's equalizer was for statistical purposes only.
Haeng-Jik Kim was too strong for Marc Boingneres, which reduced the home country's half dozen to just one single player: Jérôme Barbeillon, who made it to the last sixteen.
Huberney Cataño won against Roland Forthomme (40-31 in 22), making him the second Colombian in the final field.
Tayfun Tasdemir excelled against Nguyen after a poor first day in Bordeaux
Quoc Nguyen Nguyen, no chance to beat Tasdemir
Murat Naci Coklu for his last point in the match with Jung-Han Heo
Semih Sayginer (middle) the best player on average, watches Murat Naci Coklu's match in the stands with the Turkish federation president (r) and Gökhan Salman
Huberney Cataño with 39 on the score board, on his way to beat Roland Forthomme
The matches for Friday (13.30):
Semih Sayginer-Murat Naci Coklu
Jérôme Barbeillon-Huberney Cataño
Haeng-Jik Kim-Tayfun Tasdemir
Marco Zanetti-Torbjörn Blomdahl
16.00:
Robinson Morales-Dani Sánchez
Eddy Merckx-Jae Ho Cho
Nikos Polychronopoulos-Minh Cam Ma
Dick Jaspers-Eddy Leppens.
De top van de ranglijst na de voorronden op moyenne:
1 Semih Sayginer 2.285
2 Dani Sánchez 2.162
3 Dick Jaspers 2.105
3 Robinson Morales 2.105
3 Eddy Leppens 2.105
6 Marco Zanetti 2.051
6 Haeng-Jik Kim 2.051
8 Eddy Merckx 2.000
9 Nikos Polychronopoulos 1.951
10 Jérôme Barbeillon 1.777
Jérémy Bury, an almost-win against Leppens and eventually the elimination after the draw
Semih Sayginer disturbed the chances of Dong-Koong Kang, the finalist last year
Robinson Morales looked never that strong in a World championship