HALLE-ZOERSEL - The applause lasted a few minutes, in the billiard room of De Ploeg in Halle-Zoersel, where supporters and players showed a huge admiration for the star player. And at the billiard table, Jef Philipoom himself, enjoyed the most wonderful moment in his long career.
The Belgian billiard player, born May 27, 1964, world champion and European champion in 1995, surprised the world of three cushion last night with a world class match: 50 caroms in 10 innings after an incredible finish: runs of 17 and 18 in the 8th and 10th inning. Philipoom realized it in a match for the Belgian competition between De Ploeg and Mr. 100 Lier, won by De Ploeg 6-2.
The best (typically Jefke) reaction afterwards? ,,I’ve scored two, three difficult points in those 36 caroms in in three innings. All the rest were just ’prums’ (Belgian saying for very easy sots), because it was all position playing.’’
He was overwhelmed by the response, directly after his match and especially in the early hours of the next day. ,,People who called me, sending me messages, writing on my facebook. I must thank them all very much: this support makes me incredibly happy after a few hard weeks. My mother died just before we played the World championship in Antwerp. She was very ill, already for a long time and actually it was better that she passed away, at the end of the road of pain and suffering. But still it was a very hard time for us.’’
The emotions have fade away in the past days, Jef Philipoom likes to play billiards again. And the feeling and focus are back. ,,The most important for a billiard player is that he feels good in his head, that he is mentally strong. Without focus, you can’t play on a high level. I had that feeling again on Sunday, in the Netherlands, when I beat Roland Forthomme, fifty points in 19. But this… fifty points in ten innings with those high runs? I've never done it before in my long career.’’
He concluded: ,,It’s always an extra motivation for me when Raymond Ceulemans is watching the game. We played against Mr. 100 Lier, so the legend himself was there. And then you really don’t want to play bad. My opponent was his grandson, Bartje. We scored 14-5 in seven innings, a normal start. Then I made seventeen, we went for the break, I came back, first made one and then eighteen. My first feeling was: I have the perfect rhythm now, I would like to continue the run.’’
It was not only his best match ever, certainly it was globally the best match of the season. With a slow start and an explosion at the end: 2-1-4-0-3-4-0-17-1-18. Bart Ceulemans, who made a deep bow for his opponent, did not play so bad at all: 15 in 10 innings, 1.500 average.
Philipoom, with a big smile: ,,I played against Forthomme, on Sunday, with the yellow ball. And it was a kind of superstition. I said before the match, yesterday, if I win the toss, I will give it away. That’s how it happened, I could make the choice and gave it away to Bart. That gives you a psychological advantage, sometimes: when you come together to 40-40, then you get a chance to play the equalizer.''
Will it ever happen, Jef, as Torbjörn Blomdahl says, that one day, in the upcoming years, one of the top players will make the fifty points in two or three innings?
Jef : ,,I don’t expect that… and I can’t believe that. Maybe it will never happen. That world record of Eddy Merckx, 50 points in six innings, maybe it’s still in the record lists in twenty years. Suppose that I make the two runs from the start, 36 points in two or three innings. You never know how many innings it will take to finish the match. The pressure is higher then, it depends all of what happens in the next innings, how are the positions, don’t you lose the control. Maybe you need ten innings more for the last fourteen caroms.''
It was certainly a special day in the Belgian league anyway, on Monday: young Frenchman Pierre Soumagne, who plays for KBC Zanzibar, made in his match against Ivan Stytschinski a run of 17!