ROSMALEN - The team was beaming with happines in the arena, the stands were almost empty, but the joy of the winning players made up for everything. The Dutch cup final finished with an excellent and deserved winner, Cues&Darts/Extreme, a nice runner-up with Bousema/JBScues and a 9-hour climax on the final day. The victory at the Perron3 theatre in Rosmalen with 9-7 went to Monique Wilkowski, the team leader who cried tears of happiness, to Huub Wilkowski, her husband and team boss, who scored the winning set and to the other main players of the new cup winner, Glenn Hofman, Ruben Legazpi and Pierre Soumagne. The winning team dethroned the SIS Schoonmaak team and also would like to take a shot at the championship in the later stage. Monique Wilkowski unveiled a big new project a fortnight ago on behalf of the team and the sponsors, which is aimed at the future with many young talents. That plan also includes other big names in the competition such as Robinson Morales, Javier Palazón, Burak Hashas and Jef Philipoom.
In the final, the first national success in the cup finals was mainly due to Spaniard Ruben Legazpi, who won his four sets and played an important part. Glenn Hofman shared his match points with Jeffrey Jorissen, Huub Wilkowski with Frans van Schaik and Pierre Soumagne had to surrender 3 of the 4 sets to Gökhan Salman.
Cues&Darts finished the final performance with 9 set wins, 1.329 average and a highest run of 10. Bousema Lochem gained 7 match points, 1.188 and a run of 9. The caroms achieved were even closer: Cues&Darts 155, Bousema 154.
That was indicative of the tension this entire cup final exuded with many evenly matched games, the man-to-man battles and the Scotch Doubles to decide the matches. Harry Mathijssen, organizer, and Paul Brekelmans, chairman of Section three cushion, emphasized the great success of the cup battle in the end, started with 141 teams across the country and ended with eight in the final. Harry Mathijssen: ’’It may not have been very busy with spectators, but we have seen wonderful matches and a lot of excitement. The KNBB should be proud of this phenomenon with so many teams participating. I can only say: we will continue this for a very long time.''
The two teams in the final were left over from the big battles from Wednesday, in which first Burgmans Biljarts (against SIS), Cues&Darts (against Dekker), Aartsbouw (against Team Eekhoorn) and Bousema (against Dallinga 2) were the survivors. In the semi-finals that followed, Cues&Darts beat Burgmans Biljarts' team 6-2 and Bousema won in the Scotch Double against Aartsbouw 6-4.
Worth mentioning individually were:
X Ruben Legazpi in his sets for the final against Johan Loncelle with 15 in 4, 7, 9 and 11 innings.
X Eddy Merckx who won against Anno de Kleine 2-0 and 2,142.
X Glenn Hofman who triumphed against Dave Christiani with 2,000 average against 1,500 for his opponent.
X Ronny Brants who beat Peter Ceulemans with 2,050 on average.
X Richard de Bruin who beat Jeffrey Jorissen 2-0 and 1.304 on average.
X Pierre Soumagne against Marco Janssen with 2-0 and 1.764.
X Ruben Legazpi winner with 1.517 against Bart Ceulemans.
X Gökhan Salman to victory over Tom Persyn with 1.875.
And finally the De Scotch Double win by Burgmans Biljarts (Anno de Kleine/Bart Ceulemans) against SIS Schoonmaak (Eddy Merckx/Jean van Erp) with 2.500 average.
Huub Wilkowski cries out his joy after winning the last set for his team
The winning team Cues&Darts in the Dutch cup final
The Bousema team, runner up at the cup final