NICE - Dick Jaspers continues his triumphal march in the 18th Crystal Kelly tournament. The Dutch champion, who won again the European championship last weekend in Porto, is in Nice also one of the strongest, if not the strongest player. On the third day he beat the reigning world champion Daniel Sánchez: 50-19.
The match was a repetition of Porto, for in the European championship the European champion and the world champion met each others too. That happened in the quarterfinals, where Sanchez kept the balance until the end. Only in the fifth set Jaspers could beat his opponent 15-4. On the Cote d'Azur the match had not that tension like in Porto. Jaspers started with a run of ten and took a 27-9 lead after six attempts. After the break there was a little hesitation in the match, but soon Jaspers found back the rhythm. He finished in eighteen innings with 2.777 average. It was the shortest party so far.
Jaspers leads sovereign in group B with an overall average of 2.586, the second is Torbjörn Blomdahl, who played only two matches, but he won the duel with Semih Sayginer today 50-31 (21).
In group A, Frans van Kuijk lost his first position to Marco Zanetti, who beat him on the third day 50-28 in 28 innings. Van Kuijk was rarely in the match and had no defense against the Italian.
Very important on the third day was the clash between the Belgians Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Merckx. They are the two main players in their country and meet each other many times in international and national tournaments. In the match of today, Merckx could not parry the attacks of his opponent. The crucial attack of Caudron came in the middle of the match, when he made 25 caroms in eight innings. Merckx was 41-25 behind then and didn't have the strength to recover: 50-35 after 24 attempts.
After his first victory Caudron climbed to second place in his group, with an equal number of points as Frans van Kuijk. Caudron's overall average is better: 1.928 against 1.580.