SAINT QUENTIN - Gwendal Maréchal has won the first national tournament in the new season in France. The young Frenchman was absent from the last four tournaments of the French Masters. This weekend, he returned with a strong victory in Saint Quentin. Maréchal beat Mikael Devogelaere in the final after a draw in the regular match and winning the shoot-out 2-1.
The final showed the hierarchy, because the numbers 2 and 3 of the French rankings faced each other. Jérémy Bury had to cancel. Gwendal Maréchal (average 1.338) beat Fabrice Puigvert in the preliminary round with 1.093 and then Maxime Panaia with 1.667, before overcoming Nathan Duriez 40-34 in 24 innings in the quarter-finals. Duriez, from Saint-Quentin, had the best statistics of the weekend with the best total score of 1.492, the best individual score of 2.916 and the highest run 12! In the semi-finals, Maréchal beat his clubmate Marc Boingnères 40-39 in 33
Mikael Devogelaere (1.407) finished unbeaten in his five matches and was therefore only relegated to second place in the extension, in which he scored once against 2 for his opponent Maréchal.
Devogelaere, the reigning French champion, beat Hector Echeverry Marin 35-33 in 25 and Damien Queney 35-19 in 28 on Saturday. In the quarter-finals, Devogelaere beat Jean Reverchon 40-22 in 27 and in the semi-finals he dominated Frédéric Roelants 40-25 in 23.
Completing the podium were Marc Boingnères (1.181) and Frédéric Roelants (1.086), who beat Cédric Melnytschenko (0.989) in the quarter-finals 40-24 in 40.
The Duriez brothers had a very good tournament, with Nathan finishing 5th and Tangui 7th. Nathan lost to a very good Adrien Courtot (Colmar) on Saturday before playing the best game of the tournament against Jérôme Barbeillon 35-15 in 12 innings. Tangui beat Kevin Vasseur with 1,346 and Ghani Refassi with 1,167.
Gwendal Maréchal, come-back after some absents in the national tournaments