SEOUL - The Alpha team, sponsored by Shinhan Investment, is the leader in the rankings after the first round of the PBA team competition. The most known players in this team are Vietnamese Minh Cam Ma, Jun-ju Shin and the lady in the team, Ga-young Kim, one of the stars in the first individual PBA ladies tournament this season. Alphas shares the lead in match points with Phoenix, the team in which Frédéric Caudron and Birol Uymaz are the European stars. The two teams on top already met each other on the first day of this round. The match ended undecided in 3-3.
The cracker in this first session of the PBA team league was the start of a five-day event in which the six teams faced each other one by one. Frédéric Caudron was one of the winners for his team in the match against Minh Cam Ma: 15-14. The Belgian lost the double against Jung-ju Shin and Keon-Hwi Cho with Hyun Min Seo, 15-2. The women's match between Ga-young Kim and Ye-eun Kim ended in a victory for Kim 11-7.
The first of six tournaments, played over five days in Sono Calm/Goyang's Grand Ballroom, could be followed live on YouTube. Apart from the Belgians Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Leppens, the European players who came into action were Spaniards David Martinez and David Zapata and Turkish player Birol Uymaz. Filippos Kasidokostas was unable to play for the Heroes team due to his illness.
The Alpha's team finished with 8 match points and a 57.3 percent score and shared the lead with Phoenix (Welcome Savings Bank), which also took eight match points and a 54.9 score. For Alphas, Jung-ju Shin, Minh Cam Ma, Seong-uk Oh, Keon-Hwi Cho and Ga-young Kim came into action. For Phoenix: Frédéric Caudron, Birol Uymaz, Ji-seung Han, Hyun Min Seo and the ladies Ye-eun Kim and Yu-ram Cha.
Raon's team (Crown Haitai), with among others David Martinez and Jae-Guen Kim, finished third with seven points, shared with Heroes (Robinson Morales, Byeong-ho Kim and Mi-rae Lee). The Winners team (Eddy Leppens, Dong-Koong Kang, Bo-mi Kim) finished fifth and second last with six points ahead of Angels (David Zapata, Sang-pill Eom, Won-jun Choi).
The next (2nd) PBA team event is from 21-25 September
Some remarkable results:
Eddy Leppens-Birol Uymaz 15-10
Dong-Koong Kang-Frédéric Caudron 15-14
Frédéric Caudron-Won-jun Choi 15-6
Ji-seung Han-David Zapata 11-6
Eddy Leppens-Ji-Hoon Sun 15-11
David Martinez-Dong Koong Kang 15-9
Ga-young Kim-Mi-rea Lee 11-6
Byeong-ho Kim-Minh Kam Mon 6/15
Mi-rae Lee-Ye-eun Kim 11-1
Birol Uymaz-Robinson Morales 15-7
Byeong-ho Kim-Frédéric Caudron 11-2.