DOUARNENEZ - The French teams Douarnenez and Douai-Carvin are already sure of a place in the cross-finals at the Coupe d'Europe for classical disciplines. The tournament, organized by title holder Douarnenez, started with eight teams in the preliminary rounds divided into two groups of four. Douarnenez (Swertz, Faus, Le Déventec) and Douai-Carvin (Dessaint, Niessen, Caudron) are already sure of group wins with the maximum match points. They play the cross-finals tomorrow, on Sunday, against the winners of two matches to be played later this Saturday evening.
Raymund Swertz and Frédéric Caudron are the star players from the preliminary rounds with flawless performances in the matches in which they play for their team. Raymund Swertz is the balk-line 71/2 specialist for his team, Frédéric Caudron the leading player in one cushion. The highlight in the preliminaries so far was the balkline match Swertz played against his compatriot Gert-Jan Veldhuizen. Swertz let his opponent start, but he missed after 32 caroms. Swertz came to the table, raced to the finish in 1 inning: 200 points 71/2 in 30 minutes and 50 seconds.
The Dutch balk-line star won his three games in 1, 2 and 4 innings and has 85.71 on average with 600 points in 7 innings. His opponent in the Douai team could be Patrick Niessen in the final match. The Belgian won two games and lost one against Austrian Hikl. Niessen averages 23.90 over three games.
The one cushion is provisionally a pro for Frédéric Caudron, who for Douai-Carvin won his three games over 120 points in 10, 12 and 11 innings, an average 10.90. That is far away from the averages in the glory years of the classic games. Caudron once played a marathon in one cushion against Jean Paul de Bruijn and won by 1500 points against 1251, averages 22.72 and 18.95.
The sure group winners in the Coupe D'Europe rarely made a misstep in their matches. For Douarnenez, Raymund Swertz, Marek Faus and Grégory Le Déventec won all their matches in 71/2, 47/2 and one cushion respectively. For Douai-Carvin only Caudron won his three matches. Pascal Dessaint lost 1 match in 47/2, Patrick Niessen 1 match in 71/2.
Other strong performances so far came from Arnim Kahofer, who won the one cushion with 120 in 5 innings against Manuel Orttmann: the best game so far with 24.00 on average. Gert-Jan Veldhuizen won the 71/2 with 200 in 3 innings. Marek Faus won the 47/2 with 250 in 4 innings the same as Christian Pöther later in the day. Jordy Kanters won the 47/2 with 250 in 5, the same as Patrick Andre: 250 in 5. Patrick Niessen won the 71/2 with 200 in 4 innings against Martijn Egbers.
For a place in the cross-finals with Douarnenez and Douai-Carvin, the following teams are playing one more match:
De Hazelaar-Bfr Sterkrade
Wiener Billard Assoziation-BC Noorderkempen.
The winners qualify.
The averages of the players in the group winners' teams over three games:
47/2:
Faus 34.02
Dessaint 27.54
71/2:
Swertz 85.71
Niessen 23.90
One cushion:
Caudron 10.90
Le Déventec 6.79.
Frédéric Caudron, unbeaten in one cushion