Kay Smeets wins on day 3, 17 more Dutchman through on OOM

Wim Blokpoel - Today was the final day for EU Q-school group B. After Jeffrey de Graaf won on day 1, another Dutchman was a winner today!  2019 Torremolinos open finalist (no this website is not sponsored by Des Jacklin) Kay Smeets had a brilliant day! Smeets started today with beating 2 German players: Alexander Draisbach 6-0 and Fabian Maier 6-5. In the last 32 Smeets won 6-3 against fellows Dutchman Maikel Venema. In the last 16 Smeets won 6-2 against German talent Marcel Gerdon. In his final Smeets showed his best performance of the day as he averaged 89.3 in beating Belgian Robbie Knops 6-4.

Apart from Smeets, an astonishing amount of 17 more Dutch players qualified for final stage by ending in the top 43 of the EU Q-school group B Order of Merit. In the last days we already saw Christian Kist, Jimmy Hendriks, Gino Vos, Maikel Venema, Danny van Trijp, Luc Peters, Ryan de Vreede and Arjan Konterman gain enough points to get to final stage. Vos reached the final today as well, which gives him 6 points and makes him end second on the order of merit. Kist, Konterman and Peters reached another last 16 as well so they all did another good job to get a lot of confidence. Kist did so after beating Van Trijp and De Vreede who were through already as well, and Konterman only lost 1 leg in his first 2 games, demolishing Mike Rava and Veijo Viinikka. The final Dutch player in the last 16 was Martijn Dragt who qualifies for final stage as well after ending on 4 points.

8 more Dutchman ended in the top 43 of the order of merit todsy and got through to final stage. Sergio Krassen, who has an Italian mother and Dutch father, reached the final today. And we will count him as a Dutch player, but he’s both Dutch and Italian. With this final Krassen ended on 4 points. 3 points were enough as well, so we will also see former Lakeside quarter-finalist Willem Mandigers in final stage. Even 2 points were enough, so 4 more Dutch players got through: former World Championship participant Jerry Hendriks, Gijsbert van Malsen, Dutch talent Levy Frauenfelder and 2020 UK Open participant Owen Roelofs. Finally 2 Dutch players even got through on one point: Jandirk de Groot and Erik Meulenmeesters. I want to congratulate all 46 Dutch players in final stage, and wish them good luck there! Final stage starts tomorrow, and I’ll keep giving daily updates! 

Update (23:02 Dutch Time). After 3 withdrawals from players from Germany and Czech Republic, we’ve got a 47th Dutchman in final stage: former World Championship participant Toon Greebe!