SAMSUN - The 47-year-old Turk Haci Arap Yaman shines on all billboards in Samsun, that announce the WC artistic billiards. The former world champion has started as the main favorite for the title, which he won once before: in 2008 in Schelle, Belgium, where he defeated the Spaniard Xavier Fonellosa in the final.
The Turkish home player closed the last qualifying round in the Yasar Dogu Sports Center with the best score this afternoon (Saturday): six match points and 75.423 percents. His main atttackers seem to be Sander Jonen, the reigning champion from the Netherlands, the Belgian Eric Daelman and the other Turkish participant, Serdar Gumus.
Sander Jonen defeated the Turk Baris Cin in his last group match and thus qualified for the top eight in the tournament. Jean Reverchon, another contender, was eliminated with two defeats.
Walter Bax, Haci Arap Yaman and Gumus Serdar remained unbeaten in the three preliminary matches and entered the quarterfinales with the full match points. Kevin Tran suffered one loss, but ended up as winner in Flight D.
The eight finalists, the classification and the percentages:
1 Haci Arap Yaman (Turk) 75,423
2 Walter Bax (Belg) 65,327
3 Serdar Gums (Turk) 62,440
4 Eric Daelman (Belg) 67,181
5 Sander Jonen (Neth) 66,666
6 Kevin Tran (Fra) 65241
7 Eric Vijverberg (Neth) 65,143
8 Xavier Fonellosa (Spa) 57297.
The matches in the quarterfinals tonight:
Daelman-Jonen
Gumus-Tran
Bax Vijverberg
Yaman-Fonellosa.