3-Cushion
LUXOR - The world's top ten lost another four players (Filippos Kasidokostas, Eddy Merckx, Sung-Won Choi and Dick Jaspers) on the penultimate day of the World Cup in Luxor. The first battles for a place in the quarterfinals found a highlight in the match between Torbjörn Blomdahl and Dinh Nai Ngo from Vietnam.
Jean Paul de Bruijn won a Dutch confrontation with Dick Jaspers for the first time in four years, Dong Kong Kang eliminated Eddy Merckx and Dani Sánchez drops out of the protected top 12 for the first time since 1992.
Frédéric Caudron and Torbjörn Blomdahl, the numbers one and two of the ranking, survived as only top-12 players. The Swede won an exciting if not high-quality match against Vietnamese Dinh Nai Ngo, who missed his match ball by half an inch five times.
Then Blomdahl, who had already resigned to a loss, played out with five anyway. Ngo, totally heartbroken, missed the one point he had to produce in the equalizer.
Frédéric Caudron had to dig deep to fend off Tayfun Tasdemir: the Turk had the better start and was leading 21-14. Caudron's attack came at 29-26 to Tasdemir, five innings later it was a 40-37 in 22 win for the Belgian.
The furious start by Jean Paul de Bruijn in his encounter with Dick Jaspers was too much for the many time Dutch champion. JP made 8 from the break, soon after a 10 (7th inning) and he was leading 28-12.
The player from Zeeland, also a specialist in 1-cushion, looked to be on his way to play the best match of the tournament so far, when he needed only three more in the 11th inning. ,,Near the end, I felt the tension, because it had been so long since I had beaten Jaspers'', he later admitted.
Two misses remained unpunished, because Jaspers had resigned to the supremacy of his opponent. De Bruijn recorded a masterful win: 40-24 in 15.
Quyet Chien Tran ran an 11 in the middle stages of his match against Choong-Bok Lee, but it came too late. The Vietnamese clawed his way back into the match, even took the lead 25-24, but got trumped in the final innings: 40-34 in 33.
Sung-Won Choi got beaten in the day's first session by the volatile Nikos Polychronopoulos. The Greek champion said that he had not been able to practice in the past month, because of the sponsor problems. His luck in the qualifications, where he lost to Papakonstantinou but was saved by Murat Tüzül, has now continued for two more rounds.
Two strong Koreans, no minor names on the world stage (Kyung-Roul Kim and Sung-Won Choi), could stop the Greek, who has been mockingly named "the Messi of billiards" by the 'main and maybe ex-sponsor', could stop the Greek. Sung-Won Choi was beaten in the closing innings: 40-38 in 32.
Three Koreans, a Turk, a Belgian, a Dutchman a Swede and a Greek will show up in the arena at 17.00, for their quarter final matches.
Filippos Kasidokostas had no chance whatsoever, he was sent home by Hyung Bum Hwang from Korea: 40-21 in 22.
The matches (at 17.00):
Caudron-De Bruijn
Polychronopoulos-Hwang
Lee-Kang
Coklu-Blomdahl.