LIER - The dazzling form that Peter Ceulemans displayed at the Red Sea, during the World Cup and the World Championship in Sharm El Sheikh, continued in his first appearance after returning to Belgium. In the Belgian team league, 41-year-old Ceulemans delivered a top performance for his team Mr. 100 in the match between the numbers one and two in the league table. On centre court of Mr. 100, where the home team played Biljart Express, Ceulemans won his match against Eddy Merckx 40-13 in 11 innings.
The victory was the result of three attacks to the finish line: in the first part, Ceulemans made a run of 9, he repeated it twice in the last two innings. The home crowd saw an improbable 40-13 in 11 score appear on the board. And because Kurt Ceulemans won his match with Frans van Kuyk, his teammate in the Netherlands, 40-34 in 28, a deficit from the first half (0-4) was cleared.
Before the break, Martin Spoormans ran over Bart Ceulemans (40-30 in 31) and Gerwin Valentijn was even more ruthless for Jerry Hermans: 40-19 in 21. Biljart Express seemed on its way to glory, but lost its way after the short stop and after the knock-outs by Peter and Kurt Ceulemans. Consequently, Mr. 100 remains the leader in the league with a one point lead over Biljart Express, both out of ten matches.
In the top three BC Den Eik appeared, because BC Op de Meir was beaten hard by De Witte Molen: 0-8. This meant that Op de Meir, which still has one and two more games to catch up, lost third place. The leading player of De Witte Molen, Dirk Weeremans, was an excellent guide for his team: he beat Peter De Backer 40-25 in 26. Francis Forton conquered Barry van Beers (40-36 in 43), Sam van Etten did the same to Ivan Stitschinsky (40-33 in 30) and Ad Broeders beat Marc Roofthooft 40-30 in 30.
TBA Biljartpalace came a bit closer to the competitors in the lower regions by a nice 6-2 victory over KBC Brugse, which had Steven van Acker as its only winner against Kay de Zwart (40-22 in 33). For Biljartpalace, Frank Martens, Ronald Daniels and Eric Hendrickx scored in 36, 34 and 49 innings. BC Den Eik made the jump to top three by playing 4-4 against KBC Kortrijkse.
BC De Ploeg and KBC Zanzibar played a draw against each other with two big victories for the two Zanzibar leaders. Roland Forthomme was a way too strong for Dustin Jäschke (40-14 in 22), Pierre Soumagne even showed a better form and defeated Huub Wilkowski with 40-13 in 16 innings.