3-Cushion
CHEONGJU CITY - For the fifth World Cup this year, the international top of three cushion travels to CheongJu City next week. It is the city where Kozoom Korea is located, the town is crossed by the Geum River and the largest city of North Chungcheong with a population over 800.000. The playing centre is in CheongJu Sports Center, among the participants are more Koreans (52) than Europeans (46) and a total of 92 Asian players on the players list with 150. The tournament is the 13th World Cup played in South Korea in history.
Dani Sánchez is leading the world ranking, followed by Dick Jaspers, Marco Zanetti, Frédéric Caudron and Haeng-Jik Kim. Sánchez tops the ranking 50 points ahead of Jaspers and 81 of Marco Zanetti. Caudron will lose 80 points from his victory in Porto last year, Polychronopoulos, finalist in Porto, loses 54 points. The four previous World Cups of this year were won by Caudron (Bursa), Sánchez (Luxor), Merckx (Ho Chi Minh city) and Haeng-Jik Kim (Porto).
The Frenchman Jérémy Bury returns to the country where he has achieved one of the highlights in his career so far. With the victory in the World Cup in Guri (final win against Quyet Chien Tran), Bury demonstrated his brilliant form after the final victory in New York. The wonderful year brought the Frenchman back to the world top, now he's taking eighth place.
His first great success opened the way for Bury to more glory. At the World Cup in Guri, he excelled with great wins in 14 and 17 innings against Birol Uymaz and Jose Juan Garcia. In the main tournament he defeated the Vietnamese Ma, the Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Palazón, Korean talent Myung-Woo Cho and finally Vietnamese Tran.
The homeland of Haeng-Jik Kim, Sung-Won Choi, Jung-Han Heo, Jae-Ho Cho and Myung-Woo Cho is waiting for a new challenge with the top guns from Europe and the from the neighbouring country Vietnam. The Koreans lost Myung-Woo Cho's junior world title last week to Spaniard Carlos Anguita, but are definitely among the favourites after recent wins in World Cups by Haeng-Jik Kim and Jung-Han Heo.
In the top 14 of seeded players are nine Europeans (Dani Sánchez, Dick Jaspers, Marco Zanetti, Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Jérémy Bury, Murat Naci Coklu and Eddy Merckx), two Koreans (Haeng-Jik Kim and Jung-Han Han), two Vietnamese (Nguyen Quoc Nguyen and Quyet Chien Tran) and Egyptian Sameh Sidhom.
The European invasion of players is less significant than in previous years. In addition to the nine seeded players, the most known are Tayfun Tasdemir, Eddy Leppens, Semih Sayginer, Lütfi Cenet and Roland Forthomme. Robinson Morales, Carlos Campino, Jose Juan Garcia and Luis Aveiga are the best-known South Americans, Minh Cam Ma and Dinh Nai Ngo are the Vietnamese outside players.
The wildcards are distributed to Riad Nadi (Egypt), Jae-Ho Cho and In-Won Kang (South Korea).
The other European players in the field are are Jean Paul de Bruijn, Javier Palazón, David Martinez, Can Capak, Birol Uymaz, Kostas Kokkoris, Dustin Jäschke, Ronny Lindemann, Daniel Garonnat, Gökhan Salman, Mehmet Goren, Murat Celik, Tolgahan Kiraz, Dave Christiani, Therese Klompenhouwer, Tonny Carlsen, Juan Bouterin Bote, Ali Kemal Gunaydin, Gungor Batunali, Gokhan Uludagular, Ramon Arbiol, Flix Castellano, Miguel Casademunt, Gülsen Degener, Peter Willems, Frank Spruzina, Bülent Özdemir, Bernard Baudoin, Tapio Sonisalo, Mujde Karakali and Arzu Gök.
The tournament starts on Monday, 11.00 Korean time, with the first rounds. The last qualifying session is on Thursday, including Myung-Woo Cho, Choong-Bok Lee, Tayfun Tasdemir, Sung-Won Choi, Eddy Leppens, Semih Sayginer, Jae-Guen Kim and Dong-Koong Kang. The main tournament will start at 12 noon on Friday September 30th.
Jérémy Bury during last year's final in Korea
Cheongju City in South Korea, crossed by the Geum river