PORTO - History has repeated itself in Portuguese billiards. Rui Manuel Costa has taken his seventh three-cushion championship in Portugal and the FC Porto team took Portugal's 26th team title with five titles in the last five years. The FC Porto team consisted of Dani Sánchez, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Rui Costa and José Miguel Soares.
61-year-old Rui Costa took his title after a full competition with eight players. In the deciding match against José Miguel Soares, Rui Costa won 40-32 in 27 innings. The champion finished with 19 points out of 7 matches and 1,290 on average. José Miguel Soares was second with 17 points, ahead of Paulo Andrade with 16 and Fernando Cunha with 15 match points.
Rui Costa, who will play the World Cup in Veghel in the coming months, was a proud champion, both with FC Porto and individually. ''I played with FC Porto my best match ever in a tournament, with 1,739 on average.''
FC Porto played the final match against Clube Bilhar Eborense. The matches were:
Dani Sánchez- Alexandro Vitorino 40-24 in 24
Torbjörn Blomdahl-Fernando Silva 40-10 in 22
Rui Costa-Luis Santos 40-10 in 20
José Miguel Soares-José Bilbao 40-16 in 24.
The team championship was played with 8 teams in two groups of four, a semi-final and a final. FC Porto finished with an average of 1,400.
The final ranking in the individual Portuguese championship (match points and average out of 7 games):
1 Rui Costa 19-1,290
2 José Miguel Soares 17-1,028
3 Paulo Andrade 16-1,050
4 Fernando Cunha 15-0,961
5 Anibal Silva 14-0,856
6 Fernando Silva 12-0,848
7 José Escudeiro 11-0,881
8 Rui Palhares 8-0,691.
Rui Costa, the champion (r) with the runner-up José Miguel Soares