"At the Ring of the Bell"

On Saturday evening the tournament closed with a balance more interesting than the Stock Market. With only three games left to complete the final rounds; Frederick Caudron, the defending champion is the only player that remains undefeated, In addition, he is the holder of the highest general average of the tournament. According to the score sheets, there are only three players that can win the tournament.

Danny Sánchez from Spain finished with a record of 5-1 having scored 37 points in the game that lost against the Korean Sung-Won Choi. He held the second highest grand average of the event with 1.795. Looking at the results a little closer, Sanchez is only 3 points behind Caudron's. Even though the Belgian player is one game ahead, if he loses one match and the Spaniard manages to win the rest of his games, Caudron would have to win 2 of 3 and score at least 37 points to force a tie.

Semih Sayginer completed the day with a balance of 4-2 but remains as a contender for the first place because he managed to score 38 and 34 points. Even though he is in great disadvantage against Caudron, the famous Prince of Turkey is not at a great distance from neither Sanchez nor Caudron. Considering that these three players have the capability to win all of their remaining matches, nobody can predict with certainty who would win the event.

"Caudron remains invincible "
"Only one game away from defending the title
and winning the tournament for the second year in a row"

On Sunday morning the players got ready to start the first round of the day. Sayginer started with a run of 15 to move ahead of the Spanish Champion and three times World Champion. Sanchez tried to even up the score but Sayginer moved towards the finish line in a hurry. The match was done before it got started and Sanchez scored only 18 points. The Turkish Champion was now ahead of Sanchez by 17 points. They both had a score of 5-2 but Sayginer had 72 points while Sanchez had only 55.

In the next table, Kyung-Roul Kim, the Korean Champion pulled deep into his bag of tricks but couldn't overcome the power of Caudron who held his unbeatable status and moved only one game away from winning the tournaments for two consecutive years.

With two more games to be played, in the next round Sayginer will play Caudron and Sanchez will go to the table against Kim. If Sayginer and Sanchez both win, the last round will decide who is the new champion. If Caudron wins, he will be crowned champion immediately and he next round will decide the second and third places.

Apparently Sánchez got a little upset and tool it out on Kim. With the possibilty of being displaced to the third place (if Sayginer wins his last two games) The fabulous Sanchez played the best game of the tournament beating Kim 40-17 in just 12 innings for an average of 3.077. With this win, Sanchez secured the at least the second place. If Sayginer defeats Caudron, Sanchez still has a chance to win the tournament.

The next match was as interesting as the match between Raymond Ceulemans and Michael Kang. In the 19th inning the score was 31-15 in favor of Sayginer. Caudron scored 14 points in the next 4 innings and Sayginer scored another 5 points to bring the score to 39-29. Than missed four consecutive innings by a hair and Caudron ran a 5 to win the match 40-39. Caudron has just secured the first spot for the second year in a row. Even if he loses against Sanchez he will still be one game ahead of the Spaniard who had accumulate two defeats.

Sayginer had only one game left but his current score was 5-3, at least one game behind Sanchez. Even if Sayginer wins his last game he could only finish third. At the end of the next round Choi managed to beat the Turk 40-33 but he remained on the third spot because even though another Turkish player Tayfun Tasdemir had the same record ot 5-4, Sayginer scored 11 points above Tasdemir and had a better average. Sayginer played for a general average of 1.615, while Tasdemir scored 1.583.

In the last match Sanchez defeated Caudron 40-26 in only 18 innings. This game didn't mean much for the final standings but it took away Caudron's "undefeated" status. Sanchez proved once again that he is one of the best scoring a general average of 1.889. Caudron's became the first player to win the event two times in a row with an average of 1.774. The grand average for the group "A" was 1.477.

In the Group "B" Torbjorn Blomdahl who started the round in a very slow motion losing two of his matches, showed off his superior qualities finishing first with an average of 1.724. Peter Ceulemans of Belgium (1.354) finished second. The third place went to Javier Teran from Ecuador who beat Blomhal and scored a general average of 1.363. The grand average for the group "B' was 1.251.

To view the final score sheets, please press FINAL RESULTS on the right hand column.

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FINAL RESULTS

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