3-Cushion
ISTANBUL - Tears ran both hot and cold after the win at the World Cup in Istanbul. Korean star player Jae Ho Cho snatched the first major win of his career in the metropolis near the Bosporus. The apotheosis brought the best player on the highest podium. He needed a rarely seen rush at the end, a little luck and a great sprint in the final against the other Korean Sung-Won Choi, decided with a penalty shootout (40-40, 3-2 in the shootout).
The small, perky Jae Ho Cho is not new at the top, but wasn't spoiled yet with many international successes. He is a winner in his own country, showed a lot of high class matches in World Cups, but it never led to a golden race.
He did it now, in the Turkish final, it was a toss of a coin after a tough start. The two Koreans were chasing for the climax a long time and couldn't shine until the phase, when Sung Won Choi took an advantage 28-21 in 19.
The margin was built up to 37-28 at the end. Jae Ho Cho therefore was forced to put up a little miracle when the heat was on in the match. But when nobody expected it, after Choi had finished at 40-32 in 25 innings, the little guy sprang to life. With a mental boost, as if he was suddenly advanced by an invisible hand, he hocus-pocussed the eight caroms out of his cue, needed for the draw.
Sung-Won Choi had already twice won in a penalty shootout in the tournament, against Jung Han Heo and Frédéric Caudron, but now, in view of the final win, he he scored only twice.
Jae Ho Cho made the break-off flawlessly, could continue with an almost unmissable position and then made the third and winning point with a great precision.
The joy was intense and almost un-Korean. The cue swung through the air, laughter broke through on his face and he engaged the crowd in his joy when he realized that what he had done in this World Cup was an absolute world class performance.
The final score (averages, highest runs):
1 Jae Ho Cho (South Korea) 2.150 (12)
2 Sung -Won Choi (South Korea) 1.351 (9)
3 Eddy Merckx (Belgium) 2.025 (11)
4 Kyung-Roul Kim (South Korea) 1.795 (14)
5 Choong-Bok Lee (South Korea) 1.934 (12)
6 Dani Sánchez (Spain) 1.558 (10)
7 Frédéric Caudron (Belgium) 1.538 (9)
8 Dong Koong Kang (South Korea) 1,474 (11)
9 Quyet Chien Tran (Vietnam) 2.135 (10)
10 Filippos Kasidokostas (Greece) 1.820 (6)
11 Jae Guen Kim (South Korea) 1.731 (14)
12 Marco Zanetti (Italy) 1.294 (12).
The new world ranking:
1 Frédéric Caudron 439
2 Torbjörn Blomdahl 398
3 Marco Zanetti 325
4 Filippos Kasidokostas 317
5 Eddy Merckx 314
6 Dick Jaspers 303
7 Jérémy Bury 264
8 Sung-Won Choi 255
9 Kyung-Roul Kim 246
10 Jae Ho Cho 231
11 Dani Sánchez 216
12 Tayfun Tasdemir 214
13 Dong Koong Kang 212
14 Lütfi Cenet 172
15 Murat Naci Coklu 137
16 Quyet Chien Tran 131
17 Choong-Bok Lee 128
18 Nikos Polychronopoulos 127
19 Eddy Leppens 125
20 Roland Forthomme 124.