3-Cushion
SEOUL - The last four players have joined the twelve players who had already qualified for the final phase of the Survival 3 Cushion Masters in Seoul. The quarter finals are played from now with matches every two hours: at 16.30, 18.30, 20.30 and 22.30 Korean time. Tomorrow, on Sunday, the two semi-finals will follow and the Survival will be closed by four finalists in the arena. HaengJik Kim was the best in the last second chance round with 111 points. The other three qualifiers are Semih Sayginer, Quyet Chien Tran as group winners and Dick Jaspers as best number two of the three groups, watching from his seat a neck-and-neck race with Nikos Polychronopoulos in the final session.
Quyet Chien Tran was with 151 points by far the best in the three qualifying matches of the last chances, when he already reached 135 points soon after the break.
The schedule for the quarterfinals:
16.30: Nelin-Jang-Sanchez-Jaspers
18.30: Merckx-Blomdahl-Sidhom-Sayginer
20.30: Choi SW-Cho JH-Choi WY-HJ Kim
22.30: Lim HM-Forthomme-Ahn-Tran
Three groups of four competed for four places in the final outcome. Semih Sayginer was the first winner with 85 points in the group with Murat Naci Coklu, Jung-Han Heo and Marco Zanetti. The Turkish duo finished on one and two, Sayginer mainly thanks to the run of 9 just after the break, Coklu passed Heo on the line by a run of 9. Marco Zanetti was out of chance in the second half.
The ranking in Group A:
1 Semih Sayginer 85-2,357-9
2 Murat Naci Coklu 73-2,142-9
3 Jung-Han Heo 65-2,000-5
4 Marco Zanetti 17-1,142-3
HaengJik Kim played a superior match in Group B, in which Dick Jaspers was the second to beat Murat Naci Coklu's chances on second in Group A. Jaspers scored 87 points. The Dutchman had a brilliant highlight just before the break with a run of 17. HaengJik Kim then definitively started his attack on the leading position. The Korean scored 5, 7 and 9 just before the break and 5, 3 and 5 in the second part. That brought him to the average of 3,153. Tayfun Tasdemir finished -11 as a result of Jaspers' run and no longer played a main role. Bury was eliminated by Jaspers' 17.
The ranking in Group B:
1 HaengJik Kim 111-3,153-9
2 Dick Jaspers 87-2,692-17
3 Jérémy Bury 43-1,846-7
4 Tayfun Tasdemir -1-1,000-5
Vietnamese Quyet Chien Tran quickly reached a high score in Group C with 131 shortly after the break and the best score of the entire field of twelve at the finish. He dominated the last four, in which Nikos Polychronopoulos made a shot at Jaspers' best second position (87) and comes to 89 five minutes from the end. Tran's final inning, however, brought the Greek back to 80, what meant that he had to score three times in his last at effort. He missed out on his second carom, which meant that Jaspers could cheer in the waiting room. The other Vietnamese Nguyen Quoc Nguyen could not get involved in the fight, just like Therese Klompenhouwer, who was thrown back to zero during the break and eventually was eliminated with -3 and an unexpectedly low average, 0,529 on the scoreboard.
The ranking in Group C:
1 Quyet Chien Tran 151-2,823-8
2 Nikos Polychronopoulos 83-1,823-8
3 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 11-0,764-6
4 Therese Klompenhouwer -3-0,529-3.
HaengJik Kim showed his form on the way to the final rounds
Quyet Chien Tran on his very best