LAUSANNE - Can we bet on a Turkish winner for the first time in the Lausanne Masters, will Jérémy Bury take his first, or is Dani Sánchez still the player in the winning mood after his recent World Cup successes? With Sánchez in the final field, Sunday's final day brings only one previous winner of the LBM into the arena. Two Turkish star players, Tayfun Tasdemir and Semih Sayginer, are the contenders for a first shot at victory in the wonderful Swiss city.
The expectation is realistic based on what the quarter-finals showed last Saturday night. Semih Sayginer was the best winner in the four matches with a smooth victory over Eddy Merckx: 40-28 in 18. Tayfun Tasdemir sent another world top player away: Torbjörn Blomdahl was beaten 40-21 in 22 innings.
The two winners in the first session were Dani Sánchez and Jérémy Bury in their encounters with Roland Forthomme and Dion Nelin. The Spaniard remained just ahead of Forthomme in the final sprint (40-37 in 26), Bury finished ten points ahead of his Danish opponent.
The semi-finals are on Sunday:
10.00: Sánchez-Bury
12.00: Sayginer-Tasdemir
14.30: final
Dani Sánchez impressed in the first part against Forthomme with runs of 11 (16-4 in 2) and 9 (26-19 in 7), the Belgian had some chances to come back towards the end. He came closest with a last run of six (39-37), but Sánchez won the match with a wonderful zigzag ball over five cushions.
Jérémy Bury came back from 15-1 down against Nelin, came in balance with his opponent for the first time at 27-27 in 14 and then ran out with small runs to a ten-point lead (37-27, 40-30).
Torbjörn Blomdahl was never really close to his opponent Tayfun Tasdemir, who, like Sayginer on the other table, was allowed to afford some fantasy shots in the closing stages. Tasdemir cleared the way to the finish after 30-15: 40-21 in 22.
Semih Sayginer faced a somewhat unhappy Merckx, who found a lot of kissing balls on his way and was not the machine player that makes him so feared. Sayginer scored a nice 12 at 6-0 down and later a 7 to eventually win 40-26 in 18 innings. The highest runs in the quarter-finals were made by Sayginer (12), Sánchez (11) and Nelin (10), the highest average came from Sayginer with 2,222.
The preliminaries ended with Sayginer, Sánchez and Blomdahl as the group winners. Dani Sánchez was the best on average with 1,666 ahead of Sayginer with 1,579 and Blomdahl with 1,493. Two groups ended with three players on 4 match points. The two Belgians, Roland Forthomme and Eddy Merckx, accompanied the three group winners and three runners-up to the quarter-finals.
Tayfun Tasdemir
Jérémy Bury
Dani Sánchez
The final rankings in the groups (3 games each player):
Group A:
1 Semih Sayginer 4-1,579-12
2 Jérémy Bury 4-1,460-9
3 Roland Forthomme 4-1.035-6
4 Michel Boulaz 0-0.512-5
Group B:
1 Dani Sánchez 4-1.666-10
2 Dion Nelin 4-1.422-11
3 Eddy Merckx 4-1.311-13
4 Nikolaus Kogelbauer 0-0.884-8
Group C:
1 Torbjörn Blomdahl 4-1.493-7
2 Tayfun Tasdemir 4-1.371-6
3 Jun Tae Kim 2-1.141-14
4 Therese Klompenhouwer 2-1.081-12