NEW YORK - The last carom Roland Forthomme scored in the so called group of death, decided about going to the finals or being out of the game. Two Belgians and one Turk were involved in the outcome of the group stage: Roland Forthomme, Raymond Ceulemans and Gökhan Salman. The executioner could have been Dong Koong Kang, but when the Korean missed his matchball, Forthomme escaped and Ceulemans and Salman were out. The master himself was in the corner of the arena, turned to his wife in the stands and realized that his mission came to an end. Four wins were not good enough to compete for the best player ever in the final of the Open Verhoeven. The last match against group winner Murat Naci Coklu, meant the end of a wonderful adventure.
The Carom Cafe said farewell on the penultimate day to the 79-year old grandmaster, who has won everything in his career except this prestigious tournament. The applause was not awarded to him. The Verhoeven Open continues with all the other big guns from the global three cushion like Tayfun Tasdemir, Dick Jaspers, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Frédéric Caudron, Eddy Merckx, Murat Naci Coklu, who have booked a place in the final sixteen for the knockout.
Tomorrow, Saturday, the matadors make their entrance for the ultimate battle.
The matches in the first knockout:
10.00 (US time):
Tayfun Tasdemir-Huberney Cataño
Frédéric Caudron-Haeng Jik Kim
Semih Saygıner-Ly The Vinh
Jérémy Bury-Quyet Chien Tran
Martin Horn-Quoc Nguyen Nguyen
Jae Ho Cho-Dick Jaspers
Torbjörn Blomdahl-Eddy Merckx
Roland Forthomme-Murat Naci Coklu
Of the sixteen finalists, only Tayfun Tasdemir and Murat Naci Coklu managed to remain unbeaten in the final warm-up lap. Dick Jaspers lost his status of all-matches-winner in his match against Tasdemir. The Turk prevailed in the neck-and-neck race at the end 35-33 in 24 innings. Murat Naci Coklu was the last stumbling block for Ceulemans in a one-way-match to 35-14 in 19 innings.
Eddy Merckx, Semih Saygıner and the Korean Keonhwi Cho, who distinguished himself in this tournament, lost their first matches one round before. And Torbjörn Blomdahl, Huberney Cataño and Frédéric Caudron also didn't manage to bring the maximum match points on to the finish line. Caudron even lost twice in a row, making Horn wining this group after a 35-5 in 14 against Cataño. Sayginer defeated Merckx in the last match 35-24 in 20 and thereby finished on top in the group.
Tayfun Tasdemir (14 points, 1.856), Murat Naci Coklu (14 points, 1.828), Martin Horn (12 points, Quyet Chien Tran (12 points, 1.895) and Semih Saygıner (12 points, 1.761) closed the day as group heads and enter the ranking on top for the schedule of the main tournament.
The summary by group:
Group A:
Martin Horn had a brilliant final day on which he won against Frédéric Caudron (35-16 in 10) and Huberney Cataño (35-5 to 14). He even finished as the group winner followed by Caudron, Cho and Cataño. Thanks to his last victory over Caudron, Cho managed to pass the Colombian Cataño, who made only 9 and 5 points in his last matches. Cataño was lucky to be the best number four to join the final. Martin Horn finished with the highest average of all forty players, 1.959.
Martin Horn
The final ranking in A:
1 Martin Horn 12-1.959-11
2 Frédéric Caudron 10-1.815-13
3 Jae Ho Cho 10-1.621-10
4 Huberney Cataño 10-1.410-11
5 Thomas Moren 6-0.865-8
6 Sang Jin Lee 6-0.835-10
7 Philippe Malsert 2-0.821-6
8 Bassem Salem 0-0.556-5
Group B:
Quyet Chien Tran and Torbjörn Blomdahl both gathered twelve match points, the Vietnamese had a better average: 1.895 against 1.704 for Blomdahl. Vinh The Ly was the third ranked, making that Keonhwi Cho, one of the revelations of the tournament, misses the finals. Young Hong Myeong won only one match, but made a run of fourteen.
Quyet Chien Tran
The final ranking:
1 Quyet Chien Tran 12-1.895-11
2 Torbjörn Blomdahl 12-1.704-7
3 Vinh The Ly 10-1.377-8
4 Keonhwi Cho 10-1.293-11
5 Sonny Cho 6-0.944-8
6 Young Hong Myeong 2-0.897-14
7 Song Lim 2-0.778-6
8 Joel Switala 2-0.668-6
Group C:
Semih Saygıner showed up in a strong final match against Eddy Merckx, which he won 35-27 in 20. The two players changed position in the last round: Sayginer finished on top with twelve points and 1.761, Merckx was second with ten points and 1.808. Jérémy Bury joined the top three despite losing to Duc Anh Chien in his last match, ten points and 1.358. Semih Saygıner sparkled in a match in ten innings with a run of eighteen.
Semih Sayginer
The final ranking:
1 Semih Saygıner 12-1.761-18
2 Eddy Merckx 10-1.808-11
3 Jérémy Bury 10-1.358-11
4 Duc Anh Chien Nguyen 8-1.384-10
5 Jun Tae Kim 6-1.325-8
6 Hugo Patino 6-1.315-10
7 Poul Bjorring 2-1.056-8
8 Dan Johansen 2-0.844-6.
Group D:
Tayfun Tasdemir and Dick Jaspers competed for the win in the group in the last match. The winner, Tasdemir, improved on Sayginer's high run of 18 in his match against William Oh. Tasdemir opened with nineteen. Quoc Nguyen Nguyen and William Oh, who had won ten matches in a row, but lost his way in the ultimate stage by three losses in a row, had to determine who was the group number three. The match was decided in favor of the Vietnamese. He showed himself very happy with it: ,,This is my first time in New York, I did not start well with two losses, but I made it to the top three.''
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Tayfun Tasdemir
The final ranking:
1 Tayfun Tasdemir 14-1.856-19
2 Dick Jaspers 12-1.813-13
3 Quoc Nguyen Nguyen 10-1.316-14
4 William Oh 8-1.168-7
5 Lars Dunch 4-1.088-10
6 Nalle Olsson 4-1.072-6
7 Brian Knudsen 4-1.026-8
8 Michael Kang 0-1.035-6
Group E:
The supremacy Murat Naci Coklu showed was untouchable, four players struggled behind him for the two remaining places. Haeng Jik Kim eventually was an excellent second after a weak start of the tournament, only beaten by Coklu 35-23 in 19 innings. Roland Forthomme decided the battle for third place on one carom in his match against Dong Koong Kang. The Korean missed his matchball, otherwise Gökhan Salman would have finished third. Raymond Ceulemans, with four wins, remained empty-handed due to his last loss. ,,My last day was a bad day'', he concluded.
Murat Naci Coklu
The final ranking:
1 Murat Naci Coklu 14-1.828-9
2 Haeng Jik Kim 12-1.618-11
3 Roland Forthomme 8-1.384-11
4 Gökhan Salman 8-1.269-9
5 Raymond Ceulemans 8-1.165-11
6 Dong Koong Kang 4-1.628-11
7 Ricardo Carranco 2-1.019-7
8 Danny Korte 0-0.755-6.
The individual top ten:
1 Tayfun Tasdemir 14-1.856
2 Murat Naci Coklu 14-1.828
3 Martin Horn 12-1.959
4 Quyet Chien Tran 12-1.895
5 Semih Saygıner 12-1.761
6 Dick Jaspers 12-1.813
7 Torbjörn Blomdahl 12-1.704
8 Haeng Jik Kim 12-1.618
9 Frédéric Caudron 10-1.815
10 Eddy Merckx 10-1.808.