NEW YORK - The top position is for Semih Sayginer after two days, the Belgians Caudron and Merckx made a little misstep, Torbjörn Blomdahl and Marco Zanetti are still without a win and the McCreery Champion of Champions tournament in New York was disturbed by a long power outage on Monday night. Therefore, the last round was cancelled and moved to the third day of the tournament. Semih Sayginer is the unbeaten leader followed by Caudron, Jaspers and Piedrabuena.
The Turkish star player showed up in a flawless demonstration of his high class in the match against Raymond Ceulemans on the second day. The match reached the break already after four innings (20-20), , after six innings Sayginer led 32-8 and five innings later, frontrunner won the best match so far 40-15 in 11. ,,I felt strong in this match, but everything can still happen in this tournament'', said the Turkish magician after his match in a commentary to Jeannet Lee, the McCreery interviewer. ,,The field is so strong that nothing can be predicted. I keep my feet on the ground, but I'm really happy with this start.''
On top of the ranking, Semih Sayginer played and won three matches. His fourth match, against HaengJik Kim, was postponed last night due to the power outage. Frédéric Caudron, Dick Jaspers and Pedro Piedrabuena are Sayginer's followers with six points out of four matches. HaengJik Kim and Eddy Merckx, with four points out of three, still have a game to catch up.
The world champion, Frédéric Caudron, bumped into Hugo Patiño in the last session. The American took a generous lead after a rocket start with a run of fifteen (21-5) and was not really threatened by Caudron in the second part: 40-29 in 20. Eddy Merckx lost his unbeaten status against the Korean Sung-Won Choi (40-19 in 16), who took his first win after two losses and has with 1.964 the best average of the entire field. Eddy Merckx plays his catch-up game today, Tuesday, against Raymond Ceulemans.
HaengJik Kim and Dick Jaspers are close behind the leader after the second day in New York: the Korean with 4 out of 3, the Dutchman with 6 out of 4. Jaspers won his two matches against Patiño (40-18 in 19) and Blomdahl (40 -22 in 19) and moved up to third place. HaengJik came only one time to the table and beat Dani Sánchez to the finish line 40-38 in 22. The Spaniard, with two points out of three in the last part of the ranking, almost closed a big deficit (37-24) with runs of five and six in the last innings.
Frédéric Caudron shone in his first performance against Marco Zanetti with the most impressive run so far: 18. The Belgian raised his lead from 12-10 to 30-10 and won 40-25 in 19. Dick Jaspers scored a 16 in his match against Patiño.
Two of the world's biggest players are in serious trouble after two days in the race for the top four in McCreery's event. Torbjörn Blomdahl and Marco Zanetti missed out the start of the tournament with four losses in four matches. The Swede is suffering a finish-trauma in these opening days. Both against Sayginer (24-4 lead) and against Piedrabuena (20-4 and 34-10), the end of the match turned into a torture. Blomdahl lost 40-39 (22) to Piedrabuena and later on the day 44-22 (19) to Jaspers. Marco Zanetti, who first appeared with a white cap and later with eye-catching glasses, has not yet been able still to show his high class.
The ranking after the second day:
1 Semih Sayginer 3-6-1.714-8
2 Frédéric Caudron 4-6-1.910-18
3 Dick Jaspers 4-6-1.878-16
4 Pedro Piedrabuena 4-6-1.697-9
5 HaengJik Kim 3-4-1.641-11
6 Eddy Merckx 3-4-1.435-6
7 Hugo Patiño 4-4-1.286-15
8 Sung-Won Choi 3-2-1.964-8
9 Dani Sánchez 3-2-1.506-10
10 Raymond Ceulemans 3-2-1.389-7
11 Torbjörn Blomdahl 4-0-1.410-14
12 Marco Zanetti 4-0-1.223-7.
The matches for today, Tuesday (New York time):
10.00: Merckx-Ceulemans, Choi-Sánchez, Kim-Sayginer
12.00: Jaspers-Zanetti, Caudron-Blomdahl, Piedrabuena-Patiño
15.00: Caudron-Kim, Jaspers-Ceulemans, Choi-Piedrabuena
17.00: Zanetti-Sánchez, Sayginer-Patiño, Merckx-Blomdahl.
Torbjörn Blomdahl, flawless start, poor finishes
The entire field of players: left to right Raymond Ceulemans, Marco Zanetti, HaengJik Kim, Sung-Won Choi, Pedro Piedrabuena, Eddy Merckx, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dick Jaspers, Frédéric Caudron, Hugo Patiño, Dani Sánchez, Semih Sayginer
The two Americans, Pedro Piedrabuena and Hugo Patiño, showed some high level matches
Marco Zanetti, white cap, before his match against Frédéric Caudron