Spanish Armada rolls up Korean greatness

SUWON - The dreaded Spanish Armada, which already made a nearly invincible impression in the preliminaries, has rolled up another Korean greatness at the start of the second day. Ruben Legazpi demonstrated his big form against Kyung-Roul Kim. The Spaniard defeated his much higher ranked opponent 3-2.

The match went up and down with great a big difference in the set scores. Legazpi won the first set (15-4), Kim the second (8-15), Legazpi the third (15-3), Kim the fourth again (2-15) and the Legazpi the decisive set (15-3). The result in average: Legazpi 2.115, Kim 1.600.

The biggest of all Kim's was the fifth of six Korean who flew out the tournament in the first eight matches of the day. Tayfun Tasdemir was supremely expressing against Jin Pyo Hong (15-10, 15-6, 15-4) and Torbjörn Blomdahl was close to his best form in his duel with Gung Dong Kang, who lacked only three caroms in the two last sets, but like Blomdahl finished over two average (15-5, 6-15, 15-14 and 15-13).

The only Korean that maintained was Jin Soung Lee, who defeated Belgian Jef Philipoom 3-1. The conclusion can be that the Belgians, one of the main countries in three-cushion, have only two players in this crucial phase: Eddy Merckx and Frédéric Caudron.