3-Cushion
HURGHADA - The Belgian player Frédéric Caudron has won the Hurghada World Cup with a rarely shown supremacy and is after his victory the new number one in the world. The big names in three-cushion, Torbjörn Blomdahl and Frédéric Caudron, changed position after the last World Cup event in 2012.
The Swede climbed to the top after his victory in the Suwon World Cup. His famous Belgian rival stepped back for a while, but took over the number one spot with a demonstration of superior class in Hurghada.
Frédéric Caudron played an extraordinary final, a sparkling match, a brutal and brilliant performance, which lacked tension, because his Turkish opponent Lütfi Cenet simply could not stop the master in a three setter, a 3-0 defeat: 15-14 (8), 15-8 (6), 15-2 (3).
The Belgian impressed most of all in the second set with a finish of 12 and in the third when he relegated his opponent to a ball boy: 15-2 in 3 innings.
On the final day Caudron demonstrated his world class with averages in the semifinal against Dick Jaspers of 2.428 and in the final against Lütfi Cenet of 2.500.
He was floating on a cloud over the palatial hotel where the World Cup was played, first with a long series of qualifications, this weekend with the final rounds. ,,I had such perfect feel and so much control over the balls, that I could not do so much wrong,'' he said in his interview afterwards to Kozoom.
Lütfi Cenet, who performed in a grueling semi-final match against Jérémy Bury, which he won after having missed five matchballs, could only threaten Caudron in the first set (15-14).
The magnificent run of twelve to the finish of the Belgian in the second set and the stranglehold in which he kept his opponent in the third set, made a quicky of the final.
Frédéric Caudron needed this new, international triumph so bad after a very busy year, in which he started with friends a new billiard palace in Belgium. His main success this year was the victory in the Juanjo Trilles Cup, in which he left Dick Jaspers in a marathon match over 600 caroms far behind.
In the World Cup cycle he won last year in Vienna (world record general average 2.420), before he took silver in Matosinhos and Hurghada.
The final winner was successively on his way to gold in Hurghada in his matches against the Turk Murat Tüzül, the Vietnamese Quyet Tran Chien, Marco Zanetti, Dick Jaspers in the semi final and Lütfi Cenet in the final match.
Caudron closed the tournament with 1.684 overall average before Lütfi Cenet (1.684), Dick Jaspers (1.676), Jérémy Bury (1.500), Marco Zanetti (1.626), Murat Naci Coklu (1.590), Eddy Merckx (1.586), Filippos Kasidokostas (1.579), Dani Sánchez (1.800) and Henry Diaz (1.200).
The top twelve of the new world ranking is:
1 Frédéric Caudron 401 points
2 Torbjörn Blomdahl 390
3 Eddy Merckx 358
4 Dani Sánchez 316
5 Sung-Won Choi 301
6 Dick Jaspers 296
7 Kyung-Roul Kim 282
8 Jérémy Bury 280
9 Filippos Kasidokostas 276
10 Marco Zanetti 247
11 Murat Naci Coklu 233
12 Jae Ho Cho 224
13 Lutfi Cenet 220.