3-Cushion
HURGHADA - Torbjörn Blomdahl kicks off the World Cup in Hurghada against the Turk Selim Özden and can meet Eddy Merckx in the quarterfinals. The Koreans Dong Koong Kang, Sung-Won Choi and Jae Guen Kim can face each other in the first . Marco Zanetti and Dick Jaspers are divided into a quartet of matches with Roland Forthomme, Tayfun Tasdemir and Eddy Leppens.
Filippos Kasidokostas is at the bottom of the schedule together with Frédéric Caudron, whom he played in the final of last World Cup in Medellin.
That's what the draw revealed tonight when the preliminary rounds of the tournament were completed.
The Turkish coup at the end was spectacular. They qualified directly with three players (Adnan Yüksel, Murat Tüzül and Birol Uymaz) for the main tournament.
Three Turks join them from the runners-up top five: Tayfun Tasdemir, Ahmet Alp and Selim Özden. For Birol Uymaz, who trailed 26-12 in his match against Nikos Polychronopoulos and then put up a powerful endrush to victory, it's the first time that he may show up in a main event.
Three Koreans managed to qualify and join the strong delegation from the Asia that was alrady seeded automatically. The qualifying players are Hyung Bum Hwang, Jung Han Heo and Jae Guen Kim.
The 45-year-old German Johann Schirmbrand from Munich was the sensation of the qualifications. The former world champion teams in 1997 with Christian Rudolph seems to be back at the front after have been unbeaten for four days in eight matches.
He was fifth on the last qualifying day and is one of the twelve players that advance directly to the main tournament.
Jean Paul de Bruijn was the day's best ahead of Adnan Yüksel, Murat Tüzül and Roland Forthomme. The Dutchman topped the list with two wins and 1.904 average, Yüksel scored 1.777, Tüzül ended 1.739, Schirmbrand 1.666.
Most known players who missed the qualifications were amongst others Nikos Polychronopoulos, Savas Bulut and Ruben Legazpi, the finalist of the Pelopennese World Cup.
The Spaniard played in a group with a curious show down. He defeated Vietnamese Dinh Nai Ngo in his last match, but lost to Kostas Papakonstantinou, who played a draw against the Vietnamese. Therefor the Greek ended up as group winner with 1.212, Legazpi was second with 1.293 and the Vietnamese third with 1.541(!!).
In the group of twelve losers (third in the group) were more top players. What about Murat Naci Coklu, Glenn Hoffman and Choong-Bok Lee.
The draw for the main tournament (opening at 11.00):
12.00:
Blomdahl-Özdem
Cenet-Torres
Schirmbrand-Heo
Merckx-Alp.
14.00:
Kang-Papakonstantinou
Choi-Sidhom
De Bruijn-Jae Guen Kim
Bury-Tran.
16.00:
Zanetti-Fouda
Forthomme-Ly The
Jaspers-Tasdemir
Tüzül-Leppens.
18.00:
Kyung-Roul Kim-Hwang
Yüksel-Uymaz
Kasidokostas-Duong
Caudron-Rudolph.
The twelve players that qualified on the last day plus the five runners-up:
1 Jean Paul de Bruijn, 1.904
2 Adnan Yüksel, 1.777
3 Murat Tüzül, 1.739
4 Roland Forthomme, 1.666
5 Johann Schirmbrand, 1.568
6 Eddy Leppens, 1.403
7 Quiet Chien Tran, 1.311
8 Birol Uymaz, 1.230
9 Hyung Bum Hwang, 1.025
10 Jung Han Heo, 1.428
11 Jae Guen Kim, 1.290
12 Kostas Papakonstantinou, 1.212
Best runners-up:
1 Christian Rudolph, 1.311
2 Tayfun Tasdemir, 1.212
3 Ahmet Alp, 1.387
4 Vinh Ly The, 1.384
5 Selim Özden, 1.361.