LOMMEL - The winners of the evening were Frédéric Caudron and Peter Ceulemans, the most unlucky man Jef Philipoom, who won his two first matches, but lost his third and is out of the tournament. Caudron finished up as first in the group. He won his last duel with Ronny Brants, gathered four match points and the highest average.
The 'grandson of the legend', Peter Ceulemans, had started the evening with a loss against Caudron, in which match he made only sixteen points, but Ceulemans had a strong comeback with two victories in his last matches against Brants and Philipoom.
For Jef Philipoom, who's often in the night shifts in the casino, the light switched out on the end of the evening. He only had one rebound in his match against Ceulemans, with a run of nine, but further made a powerless impression. Ceulemans made a serie of beautiful small runs to make the gap with his opponent. Philipoom scored finally a seven in the equalizer: 40-33.
Frédéric Caudron finished with an advantage of ten points against Ronny Brants (40-30) and was with his average of 1.592 the fourth in the overall ranking of the qualifications. Eddy Meckx was the first before Eddy Leppens, Roland Forthomme, Frédéric Caudron, Frédéric Mottet, Peter Ceulemans, Davy van Havere and Steven van Acker.
The matches for the quarters are:
Eddy Merckx-Davy van Havere
Eddy Leppens-Steven van Acker
Roland Forthomme-Peter Ceulemans
Frédéric Caudron-Frédéric Mottet