BRANDENBURG AN DER HAVEL - The classic between the Netherlands and Belgium, traditionally two of the best billiards countries in the world, is the final at the European championship three cushion for national teams. The same teams played the final two years ago when the Netherlands took the title.
Tomorrow (Saturday) at 14.30, Dick Jaspers plays against Frédéric Caudron and Raimond Burgman against Roland Forthomme.
The race for gold is a repeat of the last European final when the Dutch Jaspers and Burgman were facing the Belgian world champions Eddy Merckx and Frédéric Caudron.
The Belgian teams play in other line-ups this year, because Eddy Leppens and Eddy Merckx played the final of the championship in their country and therefore show up as the Belgian A-team. That team was eliminated in the mutual match in the quarterfinals, which was one of the highlights in the tournament.
Caudron against Merckx was a real thriller, as the bump between these two players usually is: they drew up to balance until 18-18, then Merckx ran out to 29-22, but Caudron was the better at the end and won 40-38. The same scenario took place at the other table, where Leppens was leading 21-10 against Forthomme. The second man then levelled the score and ran to a big margin at the finish: 40-31 in 23.
Dick Jaspers and Raimond Burgman were hardly threatened in the group stage and neither had had a tough opposition in the quarter-finals. The Turks Lütfi Cenet and Tolgahan Kiraz were defeated 40-20 and 40-31 in 19 in 25.
Turkey A defeated in that phase with eight teams the Dutch B team (Tasdemir-Van Beers 40-20 in 21 and Yüksel-Van der Spoel 40-26 in 31), the Germans outplayed France B on average. Jean Reverchon won his first game for the team against Martin Horn (40-36 in 36), but Cédric Melnytschenko was too far behind at the end in the match against Christian Rudolf: 40-27 in 26.
The semifinals lacked any kind of tension. Frédéric Caudron and Roland Forthomme started like a rocket and were with 25-16 (Caudron) and 21-12 (Forthomme) ahead almost assured of the overall win. They eventually won 40-33 (in 19, Caudron against Tasdemir and Forthomme beat in the same innings Yüksel (40-23).
Netherlands-Germany was decided by to early attacks: Jaspers led 23-9 and later 39-17 in the duel with his former teammate Horn. Raimond Burgman had a strong start against Rudolph (20-8) and could stop the match at 39-18 when Jaspers pulled the trigger and defeated Horn: 40-20 (17).
The final tomorrow at 14.30:
Netherlands A - Belgium B
Dick Jaspers-Frédéric Caudron
Raimond Burgman-Roland Forthomme.
The fight for the European title at the small table turned into a Belgian final. Kenny Miatton and Steven van Acker battled it out for the gold medal and the main prize of 3000 euros (2000 for the number two).
Kenny Miatton, a pupil of Eddy Leppens, who once finished second in a Junior World championship (behind HaengJik Kim) and second at a Junior European championships (behind David Martinez) had the better endrush and won 40-37 in 24.
Steven van Acker signed for the surprise in the semi-finals by beating the Turkish favourite Omer Karakurt 40-32 in 14.
The women's final between the German Susanne Stengel-Ponsing and the Dutch Mirjam Pruim-Emmens was exciting, but was lacking a high level like the most of the matches in the championship for ladies. The final ended 53-42 for the German in the maximum 15 innings.
The later winner defeated in the semi-finals French favourite Magali Declunder, who misses rhythm of matches and lost 135-123 in 15 innings.
Mirjam Plum-Emmens made her come back after some years of illness and showed up with an unexpected performance.
Dave Christiani and Arnim Kahofer were the first high fliers in the balkline 71/2 (150 in 1 inning), Michel Silfhout and Sven Daske finished in two innings.