Asian Cup of Table Football 2018 program kicks off with official warm up event

A supebr venue for a great tournament

On January 17 the program of events for the 2018 Asian Cup kicked off with the official WASPA warm up event. The event was held at Lakeside Futsal, the venue for the weekends' CASTFA Asian Cup events. It was a valuable exercise for organisers and players to test out the facility, with all attendees suitably impressed by this magnificent venue.

The tournament was held in the Swiss format with Open and Junior categories. There was a great turnout of eager players, with 18 in the Open and 6 juniors. Four rounds were played in each competition, with two later arrivals joining in after round one of the Open category.

Luke Radziminski won the Open section

From the offset the large contingent of travelling players from overseas and interstate impressed the locals, dominating the top half of the table. However, in somewhat of an upset it was Melbourne's own Luke Radziminski who took out the event after a series of impressive results. Well done Luke. The next seven spots were somewhat more predicatable, with all spots taken up by players seeded for Saturday's Open event based on their FISTF world rankings.

Those looking for some goalmouth action on the weekend should perhaps follow Adrian Connolly after there we 17 goals in his 4 games! At the other end of the spectrum, Rafa Lombardi failed to concede a goal on the night, the only player to do so. He and Luke were joined by two others, Antonio Carabillo and Anas Rahamat as undefeated on the night. Anas, the number 1 ranked Asian player, finished 4th, just a win off top, despite playing a game less. All this left fans of the game with no greater idea of who may be favourite for the main individual event on the weekend. It is looking likely that the hook line from the official Asian Cup of Table Football 2018 song "Shooter ready - Keeper ready - Shoot" may be heard many times on the weekend to help decide games.

In the junior category it was Oliver Ollnow who came out on top of proceedings. He was the only player undefeated, and finished with an impressive 10 goals from his 4 games to build his confidence going into the weekend. Torban Pfister took out second place on goal difference from Gabriel Lombardi. The Wright siblings, Billy and Charlotte were close behind with young Taylor Lombardi having some fun too making up the field.

Open standings:
1. Luke Radziminski
2. Bernard Lim
3. Raffaele Lombardi
4. Antonio Carabillo
5. Anas bin Rahamat
6. Den Mulia
7. Benji Batten
8. Vikas K. Chandiramani
9. Hermann Kruse
10. Steve Wright
11. Steve Dettre
12. Benny Ng
13. Adrian Connolly
14. Simon Briffa
15. Mohd Rizal Taib
16. Kevin Grant
17. Anthony Madiona
18. Beth Eveleigh

Juniors standings:
1. Ollie Ollnow
2. Thorben Pfister
3. Gabriel Lombardi
4. Billy Wright
5. Charlotte Wright
6. Taylor Lombardi