3-Cushion
SCHILTIGHEIM - The Greek Nikos Polychronopoulos is a hot and cold player at the billiard. One moment he dips, like this afternoon in his match against Jean van Erp, a few hours later he peaks and can beat Frédéric Caudron with impressive numbers (40-28 in 17 innings, 2.353 average).
A shock surprise was in the air in the evening session in the Agipi arena. The winners of the first session, Coral Colón, met the eightfold champion Agipi in the next round.
Before the break there was an almost logical 4-0 lead on the score board, but the scores were not that convincing. Jean Christophe Roux defeated Sergio Jimenez by two points (40-38 in 24) and Jérémy Bury had a small margin as well in his match against Carlos Crespo (40-36 in 32).
In fact, it was hunky dory for the home team, but surprisingly, the leaders Frédéric Caudron and Marco Zanetti were seriously in trouble after the break. Nikos Polychronopoulos, in his first match against Dutchman Jean van Erp not a shadow of the great player he is in his better days, suddenly played poker in his duel with Frédéric Caudron. The Belgian was punt on the ranck: 40-28 in 17.
And Marco Zanetti even had an alarming first part of his match against the Spaniard Josep Maria Mas, who put his reputable opponent on a big backlog before the break (26-5 in 10).
The dreaded counter of Zanetti was almost predictable: once again the Italian attacked after the break irresistible. And moreover, he served up his opponent the most difficult positions so that Mas only scored three points between the tenth and twentieth inning.
Zanetti closed a bit of the gap in the 11th inning with a run of ten, from 26-5 to 26-15, then crawled back to 30-25 and killed the Spaniard with a run of eleven in the 25th inning. He missed on one carom from the finish, but made his last and the winning point for Agipi one inning later.
The first match in Group B ended in a draw. The two French teams, Andernos and Laxou, shared the points (4-4) and battle with the favorite Turkish team of Bahcelievler for the top two positions.
In the French clash, the scores were striking. Roland Forthomme (Andernos) defeated Martin Horn 40-17 (21 innings), the other match turned out into a big margin for Laxou.
Torbjörn Blomdahl showed himself far too strong for Filippos Kasidokostas, whom he had beaten before in this room with big numbers. This time, the world’s number one won 40-8 in 15 innings.
The score before the break was in balance, because Jérôme Barbeillon (Andernos) pulverized Eric Kremer-Leclaire 40-9 in 21 innings. Pierre Soumagne and Francis Connesson faced each other in a marathon match, with a lot of mistakes at the end.
The young Soumagne played too impetuous and too fast in the crucial phase: he wasted some easy positions for the match point. The dodgy veteran Connesson eventually lost on one carom, losing his concentration because of his strange behaviour at the table (40-39 in 41).
Andernos and Laxou shared the points (4-4), but Andernos had more caroms than the opponent (119 against 106).