Semih Saygıner

Semih Saygıner
Saygıner at the 2018 three-cushion world championship for national teams
Personal details
birthday	November 12, 1964
place of birth	Adapazarı
nationality	Turkey
Nickname (s)	"Mr. Magic "or" The Turkish Prince "
Active time	since 1991
Achievements Unless otherwise stated, the information relates to the “three cushion” discipline.
Best ED: 6.666
2018, La Baule (toilet)
Best GD: 2.128
2019 Survival 3C Masters 2019/4 , Seoul
Maximum series (HS): 19
2019 EM Brandenburg
World Championships:
1 × individual 2 × team
Continental Championships:
1 × three-band
World rankings
Highest WRL place:	3
Current WRL location:	4th

Semih Saygıner (born November 12, 1964 in Adapazarı ), also under the nickname "Mr. Magic ”or“ The Turkish Prince ”is a professional Turkish billiards player and world champion.

Career

At the age of 14 he lost his parents in a traffic accident. He started playing billiards at the age of 16. In 1991 he took 9th place at the German Open in Berlin. In 1993 he won his first medal (bronze) at the three-cushion World Cup in Berlin , and in 1997 he was only the fourth player to finish a set in 1 recordings (3 × 15 points). In 1994 he won his first gold medal in Ghent, then silver in Antwerp in 1996, and further podium places followed (see successes ).

His greatest successes to date have been winning the 2003 three-cushion world championship and the bronze medal in three-cushion at the 2005 World Games . In addition, he was three-cushion European champion in 1999 and three-cushion runner-up in Europe in 2000 and 2006. At the first AGIPI Billiard Masters in 2008, he reached third place. In 2003 and 2004, he won the three-cushion team championship together with Tayfun Taşdemir . After years because of disagreements with the President of the Turkish Billiards Association he was banned from the latter (2007-2014) and could not take part in international tournaments, he slowly worked his way back to the top of the world. In 2016 he finished third at the three-cushion World Cup and in 2018 his first medal (silver) since 2007 at the World Cup in Blankenberge. In August 2018 , he came in third place at the McCreery three-cushion champion of champions , which had been the most valuable invitation to date . In the following October at the World Cup in Cairo, he was able to defeat the Korean old master of 2014 Choi Sung-won in the final round , then Eddy Leppens and Tonny Carlsen before he was defeated by Dutchman Dick Jaspers with 37:40 in the semifinals . It was his third World Cup medal.

On November 27, 2018, he played his best game to date. In the semi-finals of the French World Cup in La Baule , he met the newly crowned world champion Dick Jaspers in the quarter-finals and beat him in just 6 shots with 40:25 and a new World Cup record in the individual average (ED) of 6.666.

Saygıner is also successful in the discipline of billiards artistique , which he likes to show to the public and the media at exhibitions or as an interlude at tournaments such as the Verhoeven Open .

Four years after his return from a nearly 10-year break in play, which resulted from disputes with the national association president, Saygıner won the Survival 3C Masters in September 2019 over the "2nd Chance “of the tournament played in the finals. He won ahead of the Koreans Cho Jae-ho and Eddy Merckx . It was his first tournament victory since 2004. After the “forced break” he had already been on the podium several times, but never at the top. Since 2016 he has won bronze twice at world championships, was once a finalist at the World Cup and twice third in New York at the Verhoeven Open.

Honors

• Zaman Newspaper Sports Personality of the Year Special Award: 2003
• Millet Newspaper Sports Personality of the Year Special Award: 2014

successes

International

• Three cushion world championship : 2003, 2016, 2018, 2019
• Three- cushion World Cup (individual tournaments): 1994/7, 1998/9, 2000/1, 2001/1, 2003, 2004/2, 1996/7, 1999/2, 2001/5, 2004/5, 2006/5, 2007 / 3, 2018/3 1993/3, 1997/6, 1998/3, 1998/6, 1998/7, 1998/8, 1991/1, 2001/3, 2001/4, 2004/1, 2004/3, 2005/1, 2005/2, 2007/2, 2018/5, 2018/7
• World Games : 2005
• Three-cushion world championship for national teams : 2003, 2004
• Three-cushion European Championship : 1999 2000, 2006
• Three Cushion Team EM : 2020
• Verhoeven Open : 2005, 2015, 2006, 2007, 2019
• McCreery 3 Cushion Champion of Champions : 2018 (semi-finalist)
• AGIPI Billiard Masters : 2008
• Survival 3C Masters : 2019/4 2018/2 2018/3
• LG U + Cup 3-Cushion Masters : 2019
• US Open: 1999, 2000 (2 ×)
• Mexico Open: 2000
• Greece Open: 2000
• Metropol Diamond Cup (Antwerp): 2001
• Japan Cup: 2002
• Super Cup (Antwerp): 2004
• Korea Open: 2007
• Yamane Cup (Tokyo): 2009
• Columbia Open: 2012

National

• Turkey Grand Prix Championship: 29 ×
• Turkey Championship (three cushion): 16 ×
• Turkey Championship: 10 ×
• Turkey Championship ( Cadre 47/2): 1 ×
• Turkey Championship ( cover ): 1 ×

Web links

Commons : Semih Saygıner  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• official homepage
• Biography and Achievements
• Semih Sayginer wins Grand Prix with 5 average finals
• Semih Saygıner Türkiye şampiyonu (Turkish)
• Here it is at last! SAYGINER'S Survival Victory ( Memento from September 24, 2019 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Semih Saygıner - Who? Official homepage, accessed on October 6, 2018 (English).  
2. ↑ Turkish legend to perform at Asian Billiards championships. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On: VietnamBreakingNews.com. October 26, 2012, accessed March 11, 2013.
3. ↑ Markus Schönhoff: 40 in 6 - new world cup record by Sayginer; Horn in the semi. Kozoom , October 27, 2018, accessed October 28, 2018 .  
4. ↑ Markus Schönhoff: There it is at last! SAYGINER´S survival victory. Survival 3C Masters - Seoul (KOR). Kozoom, September 22, 2019, archived from the original on September 24, 2019 ; accessed on September 24, 2019 .