The sixteenth day in the Dutch premier three-cushion league offered a strange scoreboard. The six teams in the top half of the rankings failed to win this Sunday. The result was that the top of the rankings remained virtually unchanged. The most remarkable match was between Cues&Darts and Team Eekhoorn. Before halftime, the home team from Eekhoorn dominated, after the break, Cues&Darts was knockin back with two wins. The best winner on this day was Eddy Leppens (Eekhoorn) with 40 in 11 innings. Glenn Hofman and Dick Jaspers, representing the Netherlands with the Dutch national team at the World Championships in Viersen this week, were both successful. Glenn Hofman concluded a week in which he won in several countries against top players from the rankings, who are also playing in the World Championship. In two weeks, the Hague player defeated Dick Jaspers in the Netherlands, Berkay Karakurt in Italy, Jérémy Bury in France, and this Sunday, Nick Polychronopoulos in the Netherlands.
Eddy Merckx suffered one of his rare losses this Sunday against Jean van Erp, Peter Ceulemans was defeated by his indestructible compatriot Jef Philipoom. The only losing team in the top four of the Kozoom league was Bousema, which returned home from Zundert with a 6-2 defeat.
Aartsbouw remains in the lead, two points ahead of Cues&Darts despite the draw at SIS. There, Jean van Erp set the pace with a win over Merckx (40-28 in 24 with a final run of 9). Raymund Swertz was also an excellent winner against Barry van Beers (40-22 in 21). For Aartsbouw, Turgay Orak and Allan Schröder leveled the score with victories over Raimond Burgman and Harry van de Ven.
Team Eekhoorn against Cues&Darts was a real thriller with two completely different halves. Eddy Leppens stole the show before the break against Ruben Legazpi with a magnificent 40-23 in 11 innings. Frans van Kuyk increased the score to 4-0 for Eekhoorn with a win over Joey de Kok (40-27 in 31 innings). The turning point came after the break, when Glenn Hofman dominated Polychronopoulos (40-21 in 17 innings) and Jef Philipoom, on the other table, showed his unparalleled fighting spirit against one of his successors in Belgium. The final score against Peter Ceulemans was 40-35 in 18 innings, after Philipoom's lightning start with 20-4 in 5 and 29-7 in 10 innings.
The team that should have capitalized on those half missteps was Bousema, but the Easterners could only count on the strong Turkish player Gökhan Salman, who defeated Sam van Etten in 17 innings (40-14). In the other three matches, the scoreboard showed a ’Brabant’ victory. Sergio Jimenez defeated Johan Loncelle (40-28 in 20), Francis Forton won vs Frans van Schaik (40-29 in 26), and finally, Roland Forthomme capped off the performance with a victory over Jeffrey Jorissen (40-25 in 20).
Dallinga couldn’t continue their winning streak, losing a valuable point against the bottom-placed Harwig team. Jean Paul de Bruijn didn't have his best day, losing almost without a chance to Andreas Niehaus 40-26 in 30. Berry Dallinga was the other loser for the Zeeland team against Theo Moes in the worst match of the day: 40-35 in 53. Peter De Backer was facing a significant deficit but still won against Rob Lamboo. Steven van Acker defeated Richard Dekker with the highest run of the day: 13.
Paperclip didn't have to wait for the marathon match between Melnytscheno and Vandendriessche to declare themselves victorious against RCN. Dick Jaspers against Dave Christiani (40-28 in 23), Anno de Kleine against Gerwin Valentijn (40-34 in 33), and Dan Breur against Henk Blauwblomme (40-40 in 47) all pulled the trigger after a long afternoon.
The standings:
- Aartsbouw 14-23
- Cues&Darts 14-21
- Team Eekhoorn 14-18
- Bousema 14-18
- Dallinga 14-16
- SIS/Vervoort 13-13
- Paperclip 14-13
- Burgmans 14-10
- Van Baal 13-9
- RCN 15-7
- Harwig 13-4