59-year-old Professional Billiards Association (PBA) Tour “newcomer” Semi Seiginer (Turkiye) captured his “magic” in the finals of his seventh career event by sweeping the table. He also became the first “Rookie Champion” in the history of the PBA Tour, now in its fifth season.
Seiginer won the final of the Blue One Resort Championship, the opening event of the PBA Tour’s 2023-24 season, with a 4-0 (15-5 15-0 15-12 15-4) victory over Lee Sang-dae, 42, the protagonist of the “tinkering myth,” at the Blue One Resort in Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk, Korea, on Monday. The prize money was 100 million won 안전놀이터.
Nicknamed ‘Sultan’ and ‘Mr. Magic’ of Turkuye for his seven World Cup titles and three Cushion World Championships, Seiginer joined the PBA Tour this season and has been on a winning streak.
In the first round of the 128-player field, he defeated Seo Hyun-min, the reigning champion, Uhm Sang-pil, David Zapata, and others to reach the final, and then turned back Lee Sang-dae with a big score, becoming the first champion in PBA Tour history to win the title on his debut stage.
On the other hand, Lee Sang-dae, who became the protagonist of the ‘tinkering myth’ after being selected by Welbanc Phoenix this season for his performance in place of Hanacard OneQPay’s Filippos Katsidokostas (Greece) in the team league last season, failed to capitalize on his second chance to win the title and helplessly surrendered the trophy to Seigneur.
In particular, Lee fell victim to Seigneur’s ‘magic’ and was unable to win a single set after hitting a number of shots that left the water polo ball with the thickness of a sesame leaf. There have been three previous finals in the best-of-seven series in which a team has gone winless (0-4).
First, Kang Min-koo lost 0-4 to Javier Palazon at the Crown Hae Taek Championship in 2020-21 to finish runner-up, followed by Cassidocostas’ bagel victory over Frédéric Coudron (BEL) at the TS Shampoo Championship in the same season, and Seo Sam-il’s zero-set loss to Seo Hyun-min at the NHL Card Championship in the same season.
On this day, Lee Sang-dae earned another unwelcome nickname, going from the protagonist of the ‘tinkering myth’ to only the fourth ‘Final Zero’ of all time.
It took Seigneur just 93 minutes to turn Lee around and put an end to his “magic,” the third-fastest final of all time. In the first set, Seigneur swept through 11 points, including seven in a high run, to take the first game in seven innings after Sang-dae Lee came back with a four-ball. His ERA was 2.143.
However, Lee’s stroke and mentality, which never exceeded 0.7 points, tightened with each passing inning. In fact, the game was decided in the first set.
Holding her opponent scoreless and taking the second set in seven innings, Seiginer fought hard to hold off a determined Lee, 15-12. In the second inning of the fourth set, she briefly rallied with her first and last high run of five points, but the rest of the inning went back to the drawing board, as she outlasted Lee Sang-dae 15-5 to lift her debut trophy 토토사이트순위.
Seigner dominated the stats as well, with a 1.714 average edge to Lee’s 0.667, a 60-22 edge in runs scored and a 9.1%-3.0% edge in long balls of five or more runs. Most importantly, Lee shot 63.5% from the field, well behind Saginer (34.8%).