3-Cushion
PORTO - The World Cup in Porto, the first global event after the summer on the UMB calendar, is launched this morning (Monday) with the first preliminaries and will close the doors next Sunday. Seven days of three cushion on the highest level can be followed live on Kozoom, the first two days for free, then only for Premium subscribers.
The return of Semih Sayginer on the international stage is one of the most striking facts in this World Cup. He benefits from the wildcard the organization offered him and will be on the kick off in the main event on Friday.
Among the participants on the first day are the young Korean Myung Woo Cho and the European junior champion, the Spaniard Antonio Montes, who both play the World championship under 22 in Sluiskil in two weeks.
Furthermore, the Spaniard Esteve Mata, the Dutch Raymon Groot and Jim Anneveldt and Turk Murat Cevikbas.
The most notable players on the second day are Raul Cuenca, de Spanish balk line specialist, Alipio Jorge, the organizer with FC Porto, the strong Spanish youngsters David Martinez and David Zapata, Young Chull Kim, Hyun Min Seo, Francis Forton, Ra Hee Kim, Manuel Santos Oliveira, Mehmet Yavas, Dutch lady Karina Jetten, Sergio Jimenez and Ronald van Geyt.
The third day gets even more top players in action, including Jose Maria Mas, Murat Tüzül, Jérôme Barbeillon, Quoc Nguyen Nguyen Alfonso Legazpi, Ahmet Alp, Xuan Cuong Ma, Ly The Vinh, Jean Reverchon, Birol Uymaz, Riad Nady, Jean-Christophe Roux, Peter Ceulemans, Lim Tae Soo, Kostas Papakonstantinou, Therese Klompenhouwer, Pierre Soumagne, Mehmet Gören Apostolos Balogiannis and Jef Philipoom.
The last day of qualifications is on Thursday with Dani Sánchez, Lütfi Cenet, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Choong-Bok Lee, Murat Naci Coklu, Javier Palazon, Quyet Chien Tran, Anh Vu Duong, Jean-Paul de Bruijn, Jae Guen Kim, Dinh Nai Ngo, Glenn Hofman, Eddy Leppens, Savas Bulut, Roland Forthomme, Ruben Legazpi, Hyung Bum Hwang, Sameh Sidhom, Jung Han Heo and Adnan Yüksel.
The sixteen players who are seeded directly are Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Filippos Kasidokostas, Eddy Merckx, Dick Jaspers, Marco Zanetti, Sung-Won Choi, Kyung-Roul Kim, Jérémy Bury, Jae Ho Cho, Dong Koong Kang and Tayfun Tasdemir, added by the wildcards Ramon Rodriguez, Ryuji Umeda, Semih Sayginer and Joao Pedro Ferreira.