ANKARA - The finals at the European three cushion championships for national teams enter the final stage today (Sunday) with four nation teams and eight ladies. The matches are between the Netherlands and Denmark and at the other table Belgium and Turkey. They are the strongest countries in women's billiards vying for the medals. For the Netherlands, Therese Klompenhouwer already took the individual gold medal two days ago. The Dutch is in the arena today as the leading lady for her team.
The preliminary rounds were played on Saturday in two groups of five teams, with the best two in each group qualifying for the semi-finals. The Netherlands finished with the maximum eight match points in Group A out of four matches, with Belgium finishing second. In Group B, Turkey and Denmark were the numbers 1 and 2. The two teams played a draw against each other in the last qualifying match.
By far the best match was the low lands encounter between the Netherlands and Belgium in the qualifiers. Therese Klompenhouwer beat her long-time opponent Danielle Le Bruyn 25-8 in 13 innings, 1.923 for Therese which was the best average by far of all 20 matches in the qualifiers. Karina Jetten won against Jaimie Buelens, the number 2 of the individual tournament by a comfortable 25-13 in 21. Those scores already say a lot about the hegemony of the Dutch ladies.
Therese played 1,923, 1,562 and twice 1,190 in her four matches. She was by far the highest of the 20 players. Only Gülsen Degener also tapped the 1 once with 1.086. For the Danes, Charlotte Sörensen reached a 0.862, the same did Estela Cardoso for the Spanish ladies and Gülsen Degener for Turkey. Steffi Träm reached 0.892 in one of her matches.
Semifinals, 12.30 (Western Europe 10.30), live on Kozoom.
Netherlands-Denmark
Therese Klompenhouwer-Charlotte Sörensen
Karina Jetten-Nanna Petersen
Turkey-Belgium
Gülsen Degener-Danielle Le Bruyn
Güzin Mujde Karakasli-Jaimie Buelens.
The results in the two groups:
Group A:
Belgium-Turkey 2 2-0
Germany-Austria 2-0
Netherlands-Turkey 2-0
Belgium-Germany 2-0
Germany-Turkey 2-0
Netherlands-Austria 2-0
Netherlands-Germany 2-0
Belgium-Austria 1-1
Austria-Turkey 2-0
Netherlands-Belgium 2-0
Group B:
Denmark-Greece 1-1
Spain-France 2-0
Turkey 1-Greece 2-0
Denmark-Spain 2-0
Turkey-France 2-0
Spain-Greece 2-0
Turkey-Spain 1-1
Denmark-France 2-0
Greece-France 2-0
Turkey-Denmark 1-1
The Holland-Belgium match