NEW YORK - The final victory in the Open Verhoeven in New York will go to one of the four European players in the main tournament. Torbjörn Blomdahl and Eddy Merckx are unbeaten on top after four of seven rounds and aiming for overall win. Frédéric Caudron is on the hunt, Dick Jaspers is walking on thin ice and already needs a little miracle to threaten the three leaders.
The Dutchman gets a chance to hit back in the first round of the final day when he meets Blomdahl, but he has to catch up four match points. The two Belgians Eddy Merckx and Frédéric Caudron, who played the final in New York last year, are now facing each other already in the starting round today (10.00 New York time).
The four Europeans dominated the first day and dealt with the Colombians Huberney Catano and Alexander Salazar, the Vietnamese Vinh The Ly and the Egyptian Sameh Sidhom. Three of these four players have one win out of four rounds, Alexander Salazar lost all his matches.
Sameh Sidhom and Huberney Catano were on the hunt for their first win and beat Dick Jaspers: the Egyptian 40-36 in 26, the Colombian 40-33 in 18 with an opening run of fifteen. Vinh The Ly won his only match when he met Frédéric Caudron (40-34 in 20), which he had beaten already in the semi-finals.
Torbjörn Blomdahl leads the tabel with the maximum points after successive wins against Catano (40-27 in 14), Salazar (40-13 in 28), Vinh The Ly (40-27 in 16) and Sidhom (40-34 of 18). Eddy Merckx also ran the entire match points against Salazar (40-14 in 18), Catano (40-16 in 19), Sidhom (40-27 in 21) and Vinh The Ly (40-30 in 28).
Frédéric Caudron lost his only match to Vinh The Ly (40-34 in 20) before he found his rhythm and powered to victory against Sidhom (40-12 in 11), Catano (40-36 in 35) and Salazar (40-20 in 12).
The world champion showed up with the best matches in the finals so far: in 11 and 12 innings. The Belgian also made the highest run (17, against Salazar), followed by Catano 15 (against Jaspers) and Ly 13 (against Jaspers).
Torbjörn Blomdahl has the best average over four matches, 2.105, Caudron 2.000 and Merckx 1.839.
The ranking after four rounds (match points, average, high series):
1 Blomdahl 8-2.105-8
2 Merckx 8-1.839-9
3 Caudron 6-2.000-17
4 Jaspers 4-1.774-8
5 Ly 2-1.530-13
6 Sidhom 2-1.507-7
7 Catano 2-1.400-15
8 Salazar 2-0.810-5
The matches for the first round today, Sunday, 10:00 pm:
Blomdahl-Jaspers
Sidhom-Catano
Merckx-Caudron
Ly-Salazar.