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Jae Ho Cho is the rising star in billiards

10/27/2011

Published by frits bakker

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Jae Ho Cho is the champion of Korea and the new start in the Masters.

SCHILTIGHEIM - The Korean Jae-Ho Cho, from the same generation of players as Dong Koong Kang and Kyung-Roul Kim (all 31), is the rising star in his country and of international billiards. The small, technically gifted player from Seoul climbed the rankings this year due to his great performances in the World Cup in Suwon, where he came to the final and lost against Torbjörn Blomdahl. Moreover he played the quarterfinals in the World Cup of Matosinhos, he was seventh at the World championship in Lima, is the champion of his country and reached the semifinals of the Asian championship, which was won by Chung-Bok Lee.

Jae-Ho Cho is the third Korean in the top twelve of the world ranking behind Kyung-Roul Kim (8) and Chung-Won Choi (11). Therefor he is the big favourit in Group 1 of the preliminaries, in which he plays on Saturday and Sunday against his compatriot Dong-Koong Kang, the Frenchman Jean-Christophe Roux and the Turk Tayfun Tasdemir.

Dong-Koong Kang also belongs to the 'Big five' of the Korean top players. He looks at the table and outside the playing rooms the most imperturbable, he's the player with a the most typical style too. Kang is the twentieth in the world and was the only Korean in the quarter finals of the last World Cup in Vienna. His most impressive performance regarding the result was the match against Eddy Merckx, which he won 3-0. Then Kang defeated local favorite Andreas Efler, but he was eliminated by Blomdahl in the quarters: 3-0.

The Koreans, who are with four in these preliminaries, arrived on Tuesday in Mannheim, where they stayed with the Korean players mentor WooJin Park. On Wednesday they spend the whole day to practice.

Jean-Christophe Roux, who plays his home matches in the Agipi arena with the famous team, and Tayfun Tasdemir don't have an easy task to qualify for next round with the two Koreans as opponents. Roux really hasn't been succesful in the Masters so far. In his four performances he won two matches and lost twelve times. The five-time French champion nevertheless is an outsider, who should not be underestimated.

Tayfun Tasdemir is undoubtedly one of the three favorites for two places in the next round. The Turk dropped out of top twelve in the world ranking this year and is the fourteenth now. Last year he survived the first qualification round, but lost all his four matches in the next round: against Michael Nilsson, Javier Palazón, Martin Horn and Marco Zanetti.

For full details of the Masters Agipi, consult the program, schedules, player cards, prize details, photos and videos and the archives of the tournament on the site. Premium Pass holders can see all the matches from October 27 to 30 in the Live section

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