NICE - What a wonderful revenge for young talent Gwendal Maréchal in the third national ranking tournament in France. The Breton player was disqualified in the first tournament in Chartres, because he came too late for his match. Maréchal, from Lorient, returned for this third tournament, was the best in the final against Grégory Le Deventec and finished with the best tournament average: 1.271.
In the final of the tournament in Nice, Maréchal faced Le Déventec, the winner of the first event. Both players are from Brittany. Maréschal won 40-31 in 40 innings, his only match below 1 average. Surprisingly, Maréchal also lost his first match in the pre-rounds against the rather unknown Jean-François Dhainaut, 179th in the French standings, 30-29 in 26 innings.
On the main table, Maréchal lost to Maxime Panaia 35-34 in 28 innings and then defeated Jérôme Riotto 35-24 in 24, thereby qualifying for the final round and achieving a better overall than his two competitors.
In the quarter finals, Maréchal was the better of Cédric Melnytschenko 40-17 and in the semi-finals he beat Marc Boingnères 40-28 in 30 thanks to a run of 12.
Grégory de Deventec is working on a remarkable season with his victory in Chartres and now the final place in Nice. He recorded victories over Xavier Le Roy and Bruno Videau in the preliminaries and then won against Kévin Perrotin 40-36 in 30 and against Bernard Baudoin in the semi-finals 40-32 in 30.
Kévin Perrotin, Adrien Tachoire, Frédéric Roelants and Cédric Melnytschenko were beaten in the quarterfinals.
The ranking after three Grand Prix tournaments:
1 Le Déventec
2 Devogelaere
3 Panaia
4 Barbeillon
5 Boingnères
6 Baudoin
7 Maréchal
8 Reverchon
9 Perrotin
10 Connesson.