3-Cushion
LIMA - Billiards is just a game, you can win and lose, we live in a time for us to worry, but I love to play. Dani Sánchez, the current world champion three-cushion, who defends his title in Lima (Peru) from 12 to 16 July, has a philosophy that makes him very popular as a top sporter among his supporters in his own country and abroad.
He won three world titles in his career and is ready for a new coup next week, as he showed with his victory in the World Cup in Matosinhos, where the 37-year-old Spaniard played a strong tournament and defeated Frédéric Caudron in the final after trailing 2-0. Then, in the deciding innings, Sánchez showed his tremendous fighting spirit again.
During the days in the suburb of Porto he spoke about the title, the ambition and the game: ,,I still think about the situation in billiard of course as I've said in the interview for Kozoom. We must work together with the players to do something and try to change the situation, but I can't do it alone. I tried to inspire more players, because we can not accept that we are silenced.''
At the billiard, Dani Sánchez has found his rest to pperform on a high level again. He showed so many times already that he's able to come back in periods that he seems to fall out of the top, like last year in the World championship in Sluiskil and now again in the World Cup of Matosinhos. He excelled in that tournament more or less to for his own audience, because Sánchez is already for many years the main player in the team of FC Porto.
The World championship in Peru next week will be played in the Circulo Militar de Jesús Maria. Sánchez is the first seeded player as the defending champion in sixteen groups of three players, in which the winners go on to the knockout stages with sixteen players.
Marco Zanetti leads the group with Kang Dong Gung and Maximo Aguirre. The Italian has been dropped out of the top twelve, but after the World Cup in Suwon he will get back his fifty penalty points from the UMB. He announced to not travel to Suwon, because he's not seeded there, but he got the message yesterday that he gets the CEB wildcard for Suwon, together with Lütfi Cenet from Turkey.
The UMB has made the groups for Lima, but they have not been updated. Jean Claude Dupont, president of UMB, told last week that Michael Nilsson (Sweden) and Chiristakis Christoforou (Cyprus) in have withdrawn. Replacements of those two have not been announced so far.
The American champion Pedro Piedrabuena and the Portuguese Paolo Andrade, who are in the group with Dani Sánchez, will open the tournament on Centre Court on Tuesday. The Peruvian music virtuoso Ramon Rodriguez, closely involved to the organization and also a billiard with great talents, plays in the opening round against Japan's Youichirou Mori.
The group formats are:
A: Dani Sánchez (Sp), Paulo Andrade (Pt), Pedro Piedrabuena (US).
B: Dick Jaspers (Netherlands), substitute for Nilsson, Ma Xuan Cuong (Vn).
C: Eddy Merckx (Bel), Antonio Ortiz Torrent (Sp), Ihab El Messery (Harrow).
D: Kyung-Roul Kim (Kor), Jean Paul de Bruijn (Ned), Radek Novak (Cz).
E: Frédéric Caudron (Bel), substitute for Christoforou, Sergio Jimenez (Sp).
F: Torbjörn Blomdahl (Sweden), Jean van Erp (Ned), Tonny Carlsen (Den).
G: Sung-Won Choi (Kor), Ramon Rodriguez (Per), Youichirou Mori (Jap).
H: Martin Horn (Ger), Sameh Sidhom (Egy), Chung-Bok Lee (Kor).
I: Jérémy Bury (FRA), Gerhard Kostistansky (Austria), Javier Vera (Mex).
J: Tayfun Tasdemir (Tur), Jae Ho Cho (Kor), Guido Sacco (Per).
K: Marco Zanetti (Ita), Gung Dong Kang (Kor), Maximo Aguirre (Per).
L: Javier Palazón (Spa), Roland Forthomme (Bel), Harry Reyes (Col).
M: Eddy Leppens (Bel), Kouji Funaki (Jap), Erick Tellez (Cr).
N: Lutfi cenet (Tur), Raimond Burgman (Ned), Rafal Noya (per).
O: Heo Jung Han (Kor), Javier Teran (ECU), Raymundo Munoz (Mex).
P: Ryuuji Umeda (Japanese), Murat Naci Coklu (Tur), Carlos Campino (Col).