3-Cushion
NEW YORK - The top favourites in the Open Verhoeven in New York are leading the field after the first day of the semi-final round. Only the Belgian Caudron and Vietnamese Tran made a little misstep. Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, Eddy Leppens, Roland Forthomme and Sameh Sidhom are the best leaders on average of the twelve unbeaten players. The Vietnamese Nguyen recorded 2.000 average after three matches and victories over Derradji (40-15 in 24), Oh (40-27 in 19) and Johansen (40-13 in 17). The battle for the two best places in four groups continues today, Friday, from 10.00.
Eddy Leppens, Roland Forthomme, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen and Dani Sánchez lead the four groups.
The overview of the four groups:
Group A:
Eddy Leppens and Can Capak top the group with six match points out of three, the Belgian with a better average: 1.904 against 1.043 for the Turk, who made the highest run in this group, 15. Quyet Chien Tran is third with four match points and 1.764, Frédéric Caudron fourth with four match points in 1.433. The world champion was defeated in a low-level match by the unknown American Young Gull Lee 40-39 in 37 innings. Lee had a better finish than Caudron with 3, 1 and 2 in the last three innings, in which the Belgian scored only once. Caudron was also threatened by Campino, the substitute, who led 22-7, but Caudron still won 40-30 in 21.
Eddy Leppens played the best match so far against Quyet Chien Tran: 40-10 in 12 innings after 20-5 at the break and 38-6 in the final part. Can Capak shone with a run of 15, but dropped on average by a bad match against Lee, which he won in 50 innings.
The ranking after three rounds:
1 Leppens 6-1.904-10
2 Capak 6-1.043-15
3 Tran 4-1.764-7
4 Caudron 4-1.433-10
5 Szivacz 4-1.066-13
6 Teran 2-1.291-11
7 Campino 2-1.146-8
8 Lee 2-0.954-7
9 Kogelbauer 0-0.821-4
Meusen 0-0.808-5.
Group B:
Four players remained unbeaten in the first three rounds: Roland Forthomme (1.904), Sameh Sidhom (1.875), Eddy Merckx (1.764) and Hugo Patino (1.481). Sung Il Yeong is also high in the ranking with 1.591 and four match points. Group B may be called the group of death. Eddy Merckx had the best match against Salem at the end of the evening (40-8 in 15), Sameh Sidhom was on his best against John Hernan (40-9 in 16).
The ranking:
1 Forthomme 6-1.904-9
2 Sidhom 6-1.875-10
3 Merckx 6-1,764-16
4 Patino 6-1,481-14
5 Jeong 4-1,591-12
6 Torres 2-1.265-13
7 Jensen 0-0.746-9
8 Hernan 0-0.657-5
9 Petersen 0-0.652-4
10 Salem 0-0.542-3.
Group C:
The Vietnamese Nguyen Quoc Nguyen had the best score over three matches, which he won by 2.000 average. In the ranking after three rounds, he is followed by Martin Horn, Torbjörn Blomdahl and Fernando Diaz, also unbeaten. The best match was made by Blomdahl, who defeated Derradji 40-14 in 14 thanks to a run of 14. Martin Horn defeated Luis Aveiga 40-24 in 21, but with two victories, the South American is still in the race. William Oh, who shone in New York two years ago, is one of four players without match points after three losses.
The ranking:
1 Nguyen 6-2,000-10
2 Horn 6-1.764-10
3 Blomdahl 6-1.578-14
4 Diaz 6-1.263-7
5 Aveiga 4-1.238-9
6 Lee 2-0.853-7
7 Oh 0-1.095-10
8 Lee 0-0,964-6
9 Johansen 0-0.875-6
10 Derradji 0-0.754-4.
Group D:
The leading positions are for Dani Sánchez (1.791), Dion Nelin (1.578) and Semih Sayginer (1.558). Huberney Cataño and Carlos Villegas find themselves in the middle part. Sánchez shone with a 16, Sayginer with a 14. Sánchez and Sayginer also had the best matches. The Spaniard against Michael Kang (40-6 in 11), the Turk against Weiss (40-10 in 11). Dion Nelin recovered from a poor preliminary round and won his matches against Choi, Cataño and Kang in 36, 19 and 21 innings.
The ranking:
1 Sánchez 6-1,791-16
2 Nelin 6-1,578-11
3 Sayginer 6-1,558-14
4 Cataño 6-1.390-10
5 Villegas 4-1,000-5
6 Park 2-0.729-5
7 Reina 2-0.705-5
8 Kang 0-1.150-6
9 Choi 0-0.763-7
10 Weiss 0-0.743-5.
The first round for today, Friday, at 10.00 (all matches live on kozoom):
Diaz-Derradji, Blomdahl-Johansen, Aveiga-Oh, Nguyen-Lee, Teran-Lee, Caudron-Meusen, Leppens-Kogelbauer, Tran-Campino, Capak-Szivacz and Horn-Lee.
Torbjörn Blomdahl among the usual suspects in New York
Dion Nelin recovered from a poor run-up in the pre-rounds