ANDERNOS - Five days after Ruben Lepazpi's brilliant qualification at the Kozoom 3C Challenge Cup after facing two French players Mikaël Devogelaere and Nathan Duriez, the second group enters the arena with three foreign players. From Tuesday 16 to Thursday 18 March, Dick Jaspers (Netherlands), Peter Ceulemans (Belgium) and Rui Manuel Costa (Portugal) will start the battle for a compete over 24 sets to 10 points in three daily sessions of 8 sets. The sessions start at 17.00 and can be followed live on Kozoom and Youtube. The end of the sessions is around 20.00.
It will be interesting to see whether the Dutch top favorite will clearly break away from his two opponents, or will the fight for the final be exciting and undecided until the end. Dick Jaspers was remarkably efficient in his last appearance at the Duke Challenge in sets of 10. He finished 2,780 on average. Peter Ceulemans finished 7th with 1,600 and defeated Semih Sayginer from Turkey by 3 sets to 1 with 1,764. He only lost in the quarterfinals after five sets against Tayfun Tasdemir.
The formula at Kozoom's event with three players around the table is new. The audience was used to the traditional face-to-face format, where the player can directly influence the play of his opponent with defensive play. In this Kozoom format, the player must control two rivals with a possible defence against only one of them in the same round. In that respect, the formula is dangerous for the favorites, most of all because of the short sets, but in 9 hours of play and over 24 sets, the strongest players should still be able be victorious.
The matches are played behind closed doors under strict sanitary conditions, with a PCR test mandatory for players, arbitrators and technical staff.
The results over the period 2016-2021 (matches listed on Kozoom):
Dick Jaspers (55): 463 matches, 362 victories (78% victories) Overall average 1,987.
Peter Ceulemans (40): 393 games, 231 wins (59% wins) Overall average 1,474
Rui Manuel Costa (60): 112 games, 66 wins (59% wins), overall average 1,197.
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Mutual matches since 2007:
Dick Jaspers-Peter Ceulemans: 19-1
Dick Jaspers-Rui Costa: 1-0
Peter Ceulemans-Rui Costa: 0-0.