VIERSEN - The European champion (Marco Zanetti) was at the table for a nice warm-up at the World championships in Viersen. And next to him in the billiards arena played Paul Mootz from Luxembourg, not more than a bit-part player in Viersen with ten caroms on the scoreboard in 56 innings.
The first day of the World championship for national teams was the day of the extreme edges. Torbjörn Blomdahl started the show in the early hours with a delicious breakfast in his match against Chi-Yeon Cho (40-14 in 14). Roland Forthomme raged in his well- known style through the arena in one of the later sessions, beating French champion Jean-Christophe Roux with a big margin: 40-15 in 22.
That match was the first in the group of death with Belgium B (Forthomme and Leppens), France (Bury and Roux) and the Netherlands, making a bid for the final rounds. The French are still alive, because Jérémy Bury balanced the score against the Belgian champion Eddy Leppens (40-33 in 27). On the second day, France will start against the Netherlands.
Colombia and the Czech Republic shared the points, because Heriberto Aristizabal won the match against Martin Bohac and Radek Novak equalized against Gabriel Vasquez. The Egypt team has still a touch of hope after the 2-1 against Peru (Sameh Sidhom defeated Ramon Rodriguez, Riad Nady and Guido Saco played a draw). Both teams await the tough confrontation with the Korean A team.
Marco Zanetti started with a win for Italy: 40-17 against Ramon Hamm, in 42 innings. Salvatore Papa defeated poor Paul Moots 40-15 in 61. The Portuguese Rui Costa surprised with an excellent win against Swiss Cetin Behzat (40-17 in 27), but his team needs a little miracle: the third team in the group is the world champion Belgium with Eddy Merckx and Frédéric Caudron.
Denmark won in the final evening session 2-0 versus Germany B, that means the second team of the host country is out. Tonny Carlsen defeated Stefan Galla 40-26 in 24 innings, Brian Hansen won 40-35 (35) against Ronny Lindemann.
The Korean B-team beat Austria 2-0 in the group in which Sweden played 1-1 earlier on the day against Korea. Chi Yeon Cho sparkled against Andreas Efler with a 2.000 average match (40-37 in 20). Hyung Kon Kim defeated Herbert Szivacz 40-16 in 27 innings.
Today (Friday) is the second day with the Netherlands at the start against France and Greece and Spain playing their first match in the group with only two teams.
The matches (from 11.00 live on Kozoom):
Dick Jaspers-Jérémy Bury
Barry van Beers-Jean-Christophe Roux
Dani Sánchez-Nikos Polychronopoulos
Ruben Legazpi-Dionisios Tsokantas.
Paul Mootz from Luxembourg, a bit-player in the Viersen arena