3-Cushion
LUXOR - Two ladies from the world are on the billiard, the European champion Therese Klompenhouwer is spectator and commentator. The Turkish Gülsen Degener leads 23-14 against Karina Jetten from the Netherlands. On the scoreboard: 38 innings.
,,It needs to be done now for Karina'', says Therese, focused on the match. She's playing without any confidence after a strong start off. Therefore, Gülsen could take advantage.''
Then, as if she heard Therese, Jetten gets control over the balls: with a flawlessly played run of eight she comes back to one point (23-22). Two players were preparing for an exciting final.
,,She is back in the match,'' Therese concludes. ,,You can see it how she plays the 'long balls', in which she's very special.
The Dutch first took a 26-25 lead, then ran out to 28-25, aided by a lucky shot, missed a first bankshot for the matchbal and finally finished at 30-27.
,,What a strange match'', she analyzed some moments later herself. ,,I said to myself, during the break: if I continue like this, I can never win this match. Then, luckily, things went much better. I repaired the score with my run and in the end it turned out into a nice game.''
Karina Jetten was one of the last players to advance to next round, as Peter de Backer, who defeated German Marcel Decker after a shaky start 30-18 in 27.
The Egyptian Ali Hares led the ranking of the second day with four match points and 1.363 average. Fourteen players from three groups of sixteen remained unbeaten. The Turk Kanuni Bulent Gündüz slipped along with a win and a draw, the Belgian Vincent Eugene was group winner with one win.
The sixteen group winners were four Turks, three Koreans, two Dutch, two Egyptians, two Belgians, one German, one Austrian and Portuguese veteran Jorge Bastos.
The top five includes Ali Hares, Min Seo Hyun, Herbert Szivacz, Myung Woo Cho and Mehmet Yavaz.
Five players from the second group go along to the third day for the players who have cancelled their participation. These five are Murat Celik, Ahmet Bayatli, Tolgahan Kiraz, Marcel Decker and Mansour Abdel-Hadi.