BRANDENBURG - Sixteen winners from the preliminary rounds with a total of 48 players have qualified for the main tournament of the European three-cushion championship. The Turk Birol Uymaz was the best with four match points with a 2.400 average and a high run of thirteen. He joins in the top five with Kostas Papakonstantinou from Greece (4-2.068) and Peter Ceulemans from Belgium (1,764-12), Filippos Kasidokostas from Greece (1.666 10) and Martin Bohac from the Czech Republic (1,621-10).
Today, Friday, with the first round at 9:00am, the defending champion Marco Zanetti and fifteen seeded players enter the tournament. Now the knock-out with 32 players to 40 caroms is starting. The most interesting matches in the first round are: Uymaz-Capak, Tasdemir-Carlsen, Martinez-Kasidokostas, De Bruijn-Sayginer, Ceulemans-Palazón, Leppens-Burgman, Nelin Polychronopoulos and Sánchez-Papakonstantinou.
The preliminaries on Thursday had a few surprises: Gwendal Maréchal was eliminated by Raimond Burgman (30-26 in 18), Birol Uymaz won against Kostas Kokkoris (30-16 in 11), Jean Paul de Bruijn was the better of Lütfi Cenet (30- 26 in 24), Kostas Papakonstantinou after a start with 11 beat David Pennör (30-17 in 16), Martin Bohac outplayed Juan David Zapata (30-20 in 16) and Roland Forthomme was eliminated by two losses against Turgay Orak and Georg Schmied.
The best sixteen of the preliminaries:
1 Birol Uymaz (Tur) 4-2.400-13
2 Kostas Papakonstantinou (Gre) 4-2.068-11
3 Peter Ceulemans (Bel) 4-1.764-12
4 Filippos Kasidokostas (Gre) 4-1.666-10
5 Martin Bohac (Cze) 4-1.621-10
6 Raimond Burgman (Ned) 4-1.538-6
7 Ruben Legazpy (Esp) 4-1.463-9
8 Dustin Jäschke (Ger) 4-1.463-6
9 Georg Schmied (Aut) 4-1.428-8
10 Jean van Erp (Ned) 1.428-6
11 Dion Nelin (Den) 4-1.395-6
12 Tonny Carlsen (Den) 4-1.363-7
13 Jean Paul de Bruijn (Ned) 4-1.200-7
14 Cengiz Karaka (Ger) 3-1.016-6
15 Glenn Hofman (Ned) 2-1.236-6
16 Peter Varga (Cze) 2-0.931-5.
De matches in the lst 32:
9.00:
Zanetti-Varga
Uymaz-Capak
Merckx-Jäschke
Schmied-Bury
Tasdemir-Carlsen
Bohac-Coklu
Martinez-Kasidokostas
Sayginer-De Bruijn
12.30:
Jaspers-Karaka
Ceulemans-Palazón
Burgman-Leppens
Nelin-Polychronopoulos
Blomdahl-Van Erp
Horn-Legazpi
Sánchez-Papakonstantinou
Caudron-Hofman.