Sayginer tops 16 players for PBA knockouts

SEOUL - Semih Sayginer is the best of 16 players starting the knockouts in the final tournament (World Championship) of PBA and LPBA. The Turk qualified with 6 match points and 1.833 on average, finishing ahead of Lütfi Cenet (6, 1779), Nguyen Quoc Nguyen (6, 1.630) and Yusuke Mori (6. 1351). The final field includes 6 Koreans, 3 Turks, 3 Vietnamese, 2 Spaniards, 1 Belgian and 1 Japanese. Surprisingly, reigning champion Jae-ho Cho and Spaniards David Martinez, David Zapata and Dani Sánchez were eliminated.

Vietnamese Dinh Nai Ngo was one of the last players to qualify with the best average (2.179) in the group where Murat Naci Coklu finished second. Coklu lost his last match to Jae-ho Cho, who had already missed out the knockouts with two losses. Semih Sayginer was the one to put the hammer down and remained on the maximum score in the final rounds with a 3-1 win over In-soo Park. Eddy Leppens, who lost to Martinez 3-0 in his second game, qualified by a win over Ki-ho Park 3-2.

Javier Palazón knocked his compatriot David Zapata out of the finals 3-1 in the last sessions. David Martinez squandered his chances against Sung-won Choi with a 3-1 loss and Dani Sánchez went down in his third match against Lütfi Cenet 3-1.

Among the runners-up, the numbers 2 in the groups who qualified for the knockouts included Antonio Montes, Murat Naci Coklu, Sang-pil Eom, Dong Koong Kang and Sung-won Choi.

Sayginer, Cenet, Mori, Nguyen and Young won Kim finished with the maximum 6 match points.

The ladies will play for the final qualifiers tomorrow, Thursday.

Eddy Leppens is the opponent of Antonio Montes in the first knock-out rounds

The men's knockouts for Friday are in the schedule.