PORTO - The preliminary rounds in the European Team Cup in Porto are close to the end, today, Friday, with the Turks of Tekstil Bilardo Spor Kulubu in an undisputed leading role. The team with Tayfun Tasdemir, Murat Naci Coklu, Lütfi Cenet and Gökhan Salman leads the field of participating teams with 1,679 on average and Lütfi Cenet's highest run of 17. That is already good for a place in the best eight, where FC Porto as the home playing team is automatically placed. Five group winners and two best runners-up in terms of averages from the groups will qualify for the knock-out phase with the home team of FC Porto.
Tekstil Bilardo Spor Kulubu won its two matches in Group B 8-0 and one 6-2 with a starring role for Tayfun Tasdemir, who won his matches to 40 runs in 16, 15 and 24 innings (2.181 average). Lütfi Cenet made his run of 17, the highest so far, in the match against Philippe Vandendriessche of Koninklijke Kortrijkse. Op de Meir finished second in this group with two wins against Zürich and Matos, but does not reach the top two of the runners-up with a final average of 0.927.
''We had a great week with our team'', Ronny Brants, the Kortrijk head man, looked back, who won two matches and played an excellent match against Tasdemir (40-35 loss in 24 innings).
In Group A, it is between Varde BK, that has finished with 7 out of 4 and Paiporta, having two match points less, but still plays its last match against the lowly Portuguese of Eborense. Paiporte (Sergio Jimenez, Xavier Yeste) is slightly better off in average than Varde (Jean Paul de Bruijn, Thomas Andersen). The match between them ended in 1-1 with Sergio Jimenez winning against Jean Paul de Bruijn (40-33 in 26), Xavier Yeste against Thomas Andersen (40-25 in 24) and for the Danes wins for Alan Schröder against Jorge Canto (40-37 in 30) and Tommy Magnussen against Francisco Unguetti (37-36 in 50).
Group C will have a finish with BK Grøndal likely to win if it wins its last match against Gotzepe. SIS Schoonmaak has a good chance of making the top eight if they win their last match against Eisenstädter's Austrians, who are still without points. SIS Schoonmaak is in a good position to be best second on average with 1.275 over two games. Jean van Erp is second in highest run with 15. BK Grøndal won the mutual match against SIS Schoonmaak 6-2.
Group D has four matches to go today with Saint Quentin as the main contender for group profit. The French started against BC Weywiesen with a 6-2 win: Peter Ceulemans beat Christian Rudolph 40-21 in 22, Johan Loncelle won gainst Tom Löwe 40-24 in 23. Saint Quentin also beat Kladno 6-2, in that match with Peter Ceulemans' loss against Radek Novak (40-28 in 29) and Loncelle's win against Ales 40-30 in 37. Saint Quentin plays two more times to qualify against Op de Meir and the Italians of Biglia. Op de Meir started 1-1 against Biglia and also played a draw against Weywiesen. The Belgians, with Peter De Backer as their captain, still have chances to win the group, but have to win against Saint Quentin and Biglia.
Andernos (with Roland Forthomme, Gwendal Maréchal, Jérôme Barbeillon and Francis Connesson) and Mostoles (with three Legazpi's and Jose Maria Mas) both have 4 points out of 2 and will play their match for the group win later today.
The best teams on average for now are Tekstil Bilardo Kulubu, followed by SIS Schoonmaak with 1.275, BC Andernos with 1.248, BK Grøndal with 1.247, CB Mostoles with 1.164 and CB Paiporta with 1.152.