SLUISKIL - The frontrunners in the Dutch premier league have ran further away from their rivals on the fourth day of play. SIS Schoonmaak and Zundert now have a margin of two match points over Team Eekhoorn and even more over the other teams in the upper part. The Cues&Darts team, seen as one of the title contenders, made an unexpected misstep against J&F Auto's on Sunday afternoon: 5-3. The match winner for the Hague side was Kay de Zwart, who beat Glenn Hofman 40-30 in 25. The top winners on this match day were Jeffrey Jorissen (Bousema), Gerwin Valentijn (Dekker) both in 17 innings and Johan Loncelle (also Bousema) in 18 innings. The notable new player in the Kozoom league is Sergio Jimenez, the 39-year-old Spaniard, who took over the captaincy at Zundert from Roland Forthomme. Jimenez defeated Jean Paul de Bruijn on Sunday in Sluiskil, had a generous lead at the end, but when the tension was gone, the Sluiskil frontman came back slightly with a run of 10: still a 40-34 in 23 was on the scoreboard. With that, the maximum match points went 5-3 to Zundert, also because Thorsten Frings (Zundert) and Steven van Acker (Dallinga), in a close match with a lot of match points, played a draw: 40-40 in 37 innings.
Sergio Jimenez travels up and down from Barcelona for his matches with Zundert on league Sunday. ’’I have to play in Spain on Saturday, get up very early on Sunday, fly to the Netherlands at 9 o'clock, play my match and travel back to Barcelona a few hours later, at 10 in the evening. It looks like a tough day, but I feel fit. And my start at Zundert is very nice. I am happy with my teammates, they support me from the first match, I already feel at home.’’ Zundert's 5-3 win in Sluiskil was laborious, despite Jimenez's smooth victory. The other frontrunner, SIS Schoonmaak, also had to fight for the full match points, as two games ended in a tie before the break. Martien van der Spoel played a draw against Tom Persyn, Toine Dekkers did the same against Ad Broeders. Then, after the stop, it were Eddy Merckx and Jean van Erp who took the win for SIS against Ronny Brants (40-26 in 28) and Dirk Weeremans (40-26 in 22).
Topbiljart Zundert made the final difference as well in the second part of the match in Sluiskil. Sergio Jimenez started against De Bruijn with a 12-0 lead, Thorsten Frings even 13-0 against Steven van Acker. Jimenez remained the better one against De Bruijn, Frings had a difficult finish and missed five match points for his team, allowing Van Acker to still make 40-40. J&F Auto's against Cues&Darts was the most notable match on this matchday. The Hague players kept the score at 2-2 before the break, as Therese Klompenhouwer won against Huub Wilkowski (40-35 in 26) and Pierre Soumagne easily levelled the score against Joey de Kok (40-16 in 20). The second part showed an unexpectedly strong Kay de Zwart, who overran Glenn Hofman 40-30 in 25, while Herman van Daalen and Volkan Cetin had played a draw before against each other (40-40 in 34), so in the end Kay de Zwart's stunt gave J&F Auto's the full win, climbing to the long middle order.
Team Eekhoorn grabbed third position in the derby against DKM Tools. The camping’s 'A-team' ran away from its opponent after victories by Kurt Ceulemans, Jerry Hermans and Peter Ceulemans. Best winner was Jerry Hermans in 22 innings. Only Frans van Kuyk suffered a loss against Roland Uijtdewillegen: 40-32 in 31.
Bousema shared the win with Dekker in the best match of this day. The averages were very high in the Bousema stronghold, where Jeffrey Jorissen and Johan Loncelle were the best for the home team with wins in 17 and 18 innings. The opponents could not come into the game. Dave Christiani reached only 12 points against Jorissen, Barry van Beers stranded on 18 against Loncelle. Nor was there any excitement in Gerwin Valentijn's win against Paul Bruijstens: 40-11 in 17.
Team Nachtwacht gained its first point with a 4-4 against Burgmans Biljarts. That could even have been two points, because Erwin Kivits had the win up for grabs against PBA pro Eddy Leppens. The Belgian got a chance to fight back in the closing stages, when Kivits spoiled an important point: 40-40 in 39. Harrie van de Ven won vs Anno de Kleine in 35 (40-38), Marco Janssen vs Frits Broeders (40-31 in 28) and Frank Martens and Bart Ceulemans played a draw.
DKM Tools remains bottom with 0 match points, Dallinga has 1 from 4 and drops to the danger zone.
Sergio Jimenez (mirror) scoring for his team, Jean Paul de Bruijn watching on his chair.
Sergio Jimenez travelling up and down on one day to win an important match for the Zundert team against Jean Paul de Bruijn.