Blog entry from 2021-03-15
Last weekend two individual tournaments of the Royal Pro Home Tour series took place. The three cushion competition was played on Saturday (March 13) and the five pins competition on Sunday (March 14). 7 players at MWS locations in 5 countries joined in, among them the five pins defending champion Luca Marzio Garavaglia. The Italian top player was aiming for his third success en suite and wanted to continue his excellent masterpiece of remaining unbeaten in all matches and sets. Everything was open in the three cushion competition after the season dominators so far Dömer, Efler and Stamm were not at the start this time.
He has been participating since the first tournament in the Home Tour series, his level of play is well known and now it has finally worked out with his long awaited first Home Tour title. We're talking about Tay-Dien Truong from Erlangen, who won the three cushion tournament in an impressive manner last Saturday. With all tournament bests on his credit side, he clearly prevailed in a well balanced field of participants. As clear as Truong's triumph was, the contest for the other places was a thriller. Up to the last point played, a lot was mathematically possible in the classification. The first ex aequo placement in the history of the Home Tour can almost be seen as a logical consequence. With the same number of wins and an identical set ratio, Kim Bengtsson and Jimmy Riml share second place.
The podium of the three cushion tournament:
- 1. Truong, Tay-Dien (Erlangen, DE | € 250 prize money)
- 2. Bengtsson, Kim (Store Heddinge, DK | € 125 prize money)
- 2. Riml, Jimmy (Innsbruck, AT | € 125 prize money)
Results of the Home Tour three cushion tournament (PDF)
3 tournament attendances, 3 tournament victories, 10:0 match wins, 20:0 set wins. This is Luca Marzio Garavaglia's Home Tour record so far after his tournament victory in the five pins competition yesterday. It couldn't be better. The Italian is currently the measure of all things and was still invincible yesterday because of his international top class. In the end, old warhorse Ernest Driessen clearly won the race for the next free, second-highest podium place by defeating Jimmy Riml in a direct duel with 2:0 sets.
The podium of the five pins tournament:
- 1. Garavaglia, Luca Marzio (Desio, IT | € 250 prize money)
- 2. Driessen, Ernest (Turek, PL | € 150 prize money)
- 3. Riml, Jimmy (Innsbruck, AT | € 100 prize money)
Results of the Home Tour five pins tournament (PDF)
Both tournaments were played in round robin tournament mode with set system match format. The three cushion matches were played on 4 winning sets in 3 points open end format, the five pins matches on 2 winning sets of 60 points each. The 3 points open end format works as follows: Current runs are never interrupted when the set distance is reached, but always played to the end. As soon as a player has at least 3 points in a set, that set is "sharp". Then the opponent must at least equalize this score with his next inning in order to stay in the set. The set is played until a player can no longer meet the requirement "equalize or overtake" and thus loses the set.
The concept of our Home Tour series is easy to remember: Every two weeks, two international prize money tournaments take place online over the MWS system at MWS locations worldwide, with one three cushion and one five pins competition. Access to these pro/am tournaments is open to all MWS users and not just for professionals. Every MWS user has the chance to participate and win prize money. All matches are streamed live and freely available on our website. The streams run platform-independent in all common browsers and can be called up on smartphones, tablets, desktop devices and smart TVs.
On 27/28 March the next two Home Tour competitions will take place, all dates and details can be found on our dashboard.
We sincerely would like to thank Pavlos Zachariadis and Royal Pro for sponsoring the Home Tour.