World Cup is launched: let the games begin

HURGHADA - The Sunrise Garden Beach Hotel around 11.00 on the day of the World Cup's opening in Hurghada. The director is Bilo Salama, dentist by profession, referee in this tournament. He gathers the 32 players in the hotel suite. The impressive Korean team poses for a picture with nine players, the Turks with six, the Belgians with four.

That's already 19 in total, the rest of the players in the main tournament comes from Spain (2), Vietnam (2), Greece (2) Egypt (2), Sweden (1), Italy (1) America (1), Netherlands (1) and France (1).

The Belgian Eddy Leppens impressed as the best player on the previous days with two matches and 2.500 average. He was linked by the draw to the Egyptian wildcard player Mohsen Fouda.

Frédéric Caudron starts the tournament against the American Hugo Patino. Torbjörn Blomdahl, the current number one in the ranking, against the Ly The and Sung-Won Choi, the world champion, against Sameh Sidhom.

The Koreans were by far in the majority at the opening gala with nine players. That's not a record for a World Cup. Jae Ho Cho said: ,,We were with eleven one time in a World Cup in Korea.''

Antoine Chart, another doctor within the organization Hurghada, presented the to the crowded stands in the hall, before the speakers, with UMB President Jean Claude Dupont as the last, officially opened the tournament.

The fifth and last World Cup this year, after Istanbul, Luxor, Porto and Guri is launched. The winner of the World Cup cycle 2014 will be known after this tournament and is the opponent of Sung-Won Choi, the world champion, at the Super Gala in Antwerp.

                                                                   Six Turkish players before the start

The matches for today (local time):

12.00 uur:
Frédéric Caudron-Hugo Patino
Jae Guen Kim-Javier Palazón
Eddy Leppens-Mohsen Fouda
Sung-Won Choi-Sameh Sidhom

14.00 uur:
Jae Ho Cho-Emrullah Basegmez
Dong Koong Kang-Anh Vu Duong
Murat Naci Coklu-Jung Han Heo
Dick Jaspers-Adnan Yüksel

16.00 uur:
Eddy Merckx-Jérémy Bury
Dani Sánchez-Choong-Bok Lee
Filipos Kasidokostas-Hyung Bum Hwang
Kyung-Roul Kim-Jin Pyo Hong

18.00 uur:
Marco Zanetti-Kostas Papakonstantinou
Savas Bulut-Roland Forthomme
Tayfun Tasdemir-Ahmet Alp
Torbjörn Blomdahl-Vinh The Ly.

The Belgians with Eddy Leppens, Eddy Merckx, Frederic Caudron and Roland Forthomme