BRANDENBURG - Jean Paul de Bruijn has put up his candidacy for a new title in the game type one cushion at the European championship. The Dutchman, fivefold champion in this discipline, was the best starter in the preliminaries and also shone in the first knockout round against the Frenchman Jean Francois Florent. Frédéric Caudron, Raymund Swertz and Raul Cuenca are the other three players for the semi-finals, played tomorrow, Tuesday, at 9.00. The other four group winners, Jean Francois Florent, Sven Daske, Michel van Silfhout and Eddy Leppens were eliminated in the first knock-out stage.
Jean Paul de Bruijn performed the best of all 24 players so far in Blankenberge. The Dutchman won his two matches in the group stage against the Greek Dionisis Tsokantas 100-38 in 10 and the Frenchman Grégory le Deventec 100-14 in two innings (final run 95). Therefore De Bruijn recorded the best average of all players: 16.66. In the first knockout round, De Bruijn was way too strong for Frenchman Florent: he won 100 in 5 innings with a final run of 64.
Frédéric Caudron, recording four match points and 12.50 average in the preliminary rounds, eliminated the Dutchman Michel van Silfhout in the quarterfinals. The Belgian won 120-47 in 8 innings. Van Silfhout came out on top of his group with the same match points as Bernard Baudoin, against whom he played a draw. The average of the Dutchman was a little better.
Raymund Swertz couldn't continue after his fine start in the preliminary rounds, 100-14 in 3 innings. In the next session, the all round balk-line player was in trouble against Bernard Villiers from France with the equalizing carom from the spots. He had a better average than Villiers. In the quarterfinals, Swertz was opposed to the Belgian Eddy Leppens, who attacked from the start and was leading, when the Dutchman came close to the finish with 37 and 47 runs. He closed the match with his last two points in the 10th inning. Eddy Leppens missed from the spots: 120-85.
The last match in the quarterfinals was the longest in time and innings: Raul Cuenca from Spain and Sven Daske from Germany clashed in a hard match, won by the Spaniard after 22 innings: 120-55.
Semi-finals:
Frédéric Caudron-Raymund Swertz
Jean Paul de Bruijn-Raul Cuenca.
Frédéric Caudron, the title holder in Brandenburg
Raymund Swertz was the better of Eddy Leppens
Raul Cuenca surprised with a place in the semi-finals
The eight finalists in the three cushion championship under 17 are Dylan Parent (Belgium), Alessio d'Agaga (Italy), Enzo Riquart (France), Maxime Panaia (France), Dogukan Corbachi (Turkey), Dimitrius Seleventas (Greece), Jan Gaspari (Germany) and Ivan Mayor (Spain).
They play the quarterfinals at 9:00 on Tuesday morning. Dylan Parent was the best of four group winners with 1.428 in average ahead of Alessio d'Agata 1.282, Maxime Panaia 0.961 and Enzo Riquart 0.925.