Is Ömer Karakurt the new crown prince?

SAN JAVIER - With his long hair, he looks a bit like Lütfi Cenet in his earlier years, but in his game he reminds also to Semih Sayginer. The conclusion is quite a bit premature, of course, but is Ömer Karakurt the new crown prince of Turkish three cushion. The chat (on Kozoom) was very alive during this afternoon's semi-finals. Is he a new talent, a man with a great future, a young coming man?

That's a bit gushing for the momen; we all know that it's a big step to the world top. But fact is that the young guy from the ntion with its large arsenal of top players rapidly has developed himself to a high level player, a street fighting man with a fluence stroke.

Haeng Jik Kim, who is his opponent in the World championship final tonight (18.30), is already for a long time on top as a youth player and is the holder of three world titles.

Ömer Karakurt, big figure, long hair, beard and mustache, is still waiting for his breakthrough. His main results so far: he lost at the European championship two years ago in the semi-finals 3-1 in sets against Glenn Hofmann, the later champion who beat David Martinez in the finals. He did nog show up in the World Championship in Guatemala last year, but played the final in the Europeans, where he lost 30-18 to David Zapata.

But in San Javier, he is in a blistering form after a not too impressive start. He's showing the airs of a star player, a daredevil who is not afraid to cross swords with Haeng Jik Kim in the final.

The Turk passed through the preliminaries with matches of 1.086 (Matthieu Franck), 1.250 (José Garcia) and 1.190 (Sergio Aparicio), but was on fire in his last matches against Raymon Groot (1.521) and in the semifinal against the Korean Juntae Kim (1.944).

Karakurt led in this last match already 24-6 after nine innings and a run of eight. He kept the margin and built it up to 32-16 in 15 innings, the Korean put a bit of pression on him with a run of five, but in the closing innings Karakurt was the very best: 35-21 in the 18th inning.

Haeng Jik Kim looked at a backlog of some points until the fourteenth inning of his match against Jose Garcia. Then he leveled the score at 22-22, shut down every move of his opponent and then topped him with small runs until the end.

The Colombian forced a little come-back with five in the 20th inning (32-28); one inning later Kim knocked him down 35-29.