VIERSEN - Two stunning runs by Vietnamese leader Quyet Chien Tran didn’t yet bring his team into the next round at the World Championship for nation teams in Viersen. The Swedish record holder in titles, Torbjörn Blomdahl and Michael Nilsson, beat the Vietnamese 4-0 late on Thursday night and took the lead after two rounds in this Group D with three match points. Vietnam and Belgium follow with two points, Austria has one point. Tomorrow, Friday, Sweden will still meet Austria, Vietnam plays Belgium.
In the three other group, all the teams played only one match on the first match day of this World championship. In Group A, the Turks lead with 2 match points ahead of Greece and Japan with 1 point and USA without match points.
Germany and Mexico are on top in Group B with 2 match points after Mexico's very surprising win over South Korea. And the Netherlands and Spain, who meet first on Friday, won their first match in Group C against Jordan and later play France. For now, the highest team in average is Turkey with 1.951 (Sayginer highest run of 16), ahead of Vietnam with 1.682, Germany with 1.568, Sweden with 1.514 and the Netherlands with 1.509.
The summaries of the four groups:
Group A:
Turkey's win in Group A against the poor USA team was impressive. Semih Sayginer in particular played a magnificent opening match against Hugo Patino. A run of 16 in the 8th inning, the second best of the day, put Sayginer on a 27-5 margin. He didn’t give away that lead again: the score ran out to 40-11 in 17 innings. Tayfun Tasdemir had a bit more work to do with Carlos Mario Villegas, but also was the better with a generous score: 40-17 in 24. That put the Turks proudly in the lead in this Group A, where Japan and Greece finished with an equal score. Nikos Polychronopoulos had no trouble in that match with the former world champion Ryuuji Umeda, whom he defeated 40-17 in 24 innings, but the other Japanese, Takao Myashita, showed his qualities and defeated Greek Kostas Anonatos 40-19 in 23. That brings the Turkish title defender in the lead after one day with the maximum match points, Japan and Greece follow on 1 point. Turkey meets Greece first on Friday, including the match between Semih Sayginer and Nikos Polychronopoulos at 4pm.
Group B:
The Koreans started their mission with a totally unexpected loss against Mexico (0-4), which team joined Germany (4-0 win against Egypt) in first place after the first day. Haeng Jik Kim, who came so strong from Las Vegas World Cup, had a total off-day against Christian Hernandez. The Mexican seized his chance in the last part when his Korean opponent missed nine times in his last 13 innings. Hernandez first worked off a deficit and went on to finish with 4, 2 and 1 for a final score 40-38 in 27. Javier Vera also faced an unrecognizable Korean at the other table. Jung Han Heo started with five zeros, then made a 9 and in the closing stages an 8, but by then Hernandez, who continued to score with regularity after 12-0, was far enough to grab the win 40-34 in 29.
The German team crossed the line in this Group B with a narrow victory on the first day: the Egyptians were beaten 4-0 showing Martin Horn the best winner of this group. The leader of the home team defeated Sameh Sidhom by a big score: 40-19 in 21 innings. The runner-up, Cengiz Karaca, Ronny Lindemann's replacement, battled for a win with Riad Nady in the closing innings, was even behind 18-10, but slowly came back and finished with 4 and 3, staying ahead of his opponent by one carom: 40-39 in 30. Tomorrow, Friday, Germany plays against Mexico at 2pm, in the same round the South Koreans try to revenge in their second match with Egypt as opponents.
Group C:
Dick Jaspers and Jean Paul de Bruijn finished the first round with remarkable ease. The Dutch flag was allowed to fly for a while after the 4-0 win over weak Jordan. Nobody had doubted this beforehand either, as in the Netherlands' group only Spain is the other favorite and France an outsider.
The Dutch team beat the two Jordanians by generous scores. Jaspers won against Mashhour Abi Tayeh 40-16 in 17 innings, partly due to a run of 12 in the 9th inning, that took him to 31-9 by then. Jean Paul de Bruijn had a slightly longer run up against Nasar Awward, but his opponent was not good at all: 40-11 in 35 innings. Jaspers registered 2.352, De Bruijn 1.111.
The Spanish/French duel in this Group C brought more excitement to the session. Dani Sánchez, who scored an early 6 but then fell back and finished with innings of 1 and 2 points, held only a small margin over Mikael Devogelaere at 40-36 in 29, Ruben Legazpi had it a bit trickier at the end against Jérôme Barbeillon. The Frenchman had a better start, making 7 in the 5th and 8 in the 9th innings for a 15-10 lead, but lost control of the match and saw Legazpi finish better with 40-38 in 28.
The Netherlands will play Spain first tomorrow, Friday, at 11am, with France playing Jordan in that session.
Group D:
The Vietnamese had the best opening with a 4-0 win in match points against Austria. Quyet Chien Tran with a run of 17 defeated Arnim Kahofer 40-30 in 12, Duc Anh Chien Nguyen won against Claus Maurer 40-27 in 23. After this start, Vietnam were the favorites as Sweden and Belgium played draw: Peter De Backer defeated Torbjörn Blomdahl for Belgium in the final sprint as the Swede missed his last point in the equalizer: 40-39 in 29. Michael Nilsson saved the point for his team by beating Wesley de Jaeger 40-22 in 29.
The odds turned in the second session (only in Group D did the four teams play twice) as Vietnam lost to Sweden and Belgium lost one match point against Austria. Blomdahl made up for his inferior start and stayed ahead of Quyet Chien Tran 40-30 in 18, while Michael Nilsson signed for the full win. The Swedish number 2, who is the only one to win two matches so far, beat Duc Anh Chien 40-30 in 29.
Michael Nilsson (Sweden) only player so far with two wins
Semih Sayginer (Turkey)
Torbjörn Blomdahl (Sweden), loss to De Backer, win over Tran
Dick Jaspers (Netherlands)
Peter De Backer (België)
Javier Vera (Mexico)