Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Sami Targui, an amazing winner in the best Major ever played

The 33rd Major in the history of FISTF took place ont he first week-end of March in Mons (Belgium). It was a very big tournament with 44 teams on the saturday, 213 individuals, 12 countries and 46 different clubs among the entries. The team event was full of surprises. We must admit some of the top teams didn't show up with their best players as there were some late drop-outs. In the barrage round, Mattersburg was defeated by the B-team of AS Hennuyer, which played with their "old legends" like Brau, Ruelle, Mairesse, Dieu and Père while Stembert beat Perugia and Temploux defeated CCT Roma. The last 16 round was also full of surprises with Hansel Mallia's golden goal to help AS Hennuyer to beat Hamrun TFC while Roligans beat current european champions of Pisa and Temploux manage to beat Brussels SC thanks to an individual victory of Steve Grégoire over Gil Delogne. After many close games in the quarter-finals and the semis, Murcia and Reggio Emilia qualified for the big final. The spanish side dominated the first half but finally the Italians took over in the last 15 minutes to win their 3rd title in a Major thanks to individual victories of Bari and Sousa.

The Open tournament was also of a vey high level with 126 players taking part. Only 2 players from the host countries were still involved during the quarter-finals but finally Belgium managed to surprise many top players thanks to Sami Targui (25 years old, SC Charleroi, 67th in the worldranking). The young Belgian, who lives just a few kilometers away from the venue, managed to beat Stefano Buono, Carlos Flores, Saverio Bari, Robert Lenz and finally Wolfgang Leitner to win his first international tournament in the Open category.

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