Junior talents in billiards facing a leap in the dark

04/09/2020

Published by frits bakker

The twelve junior players for Kozoom's interview in these months without billiard events

KOZOOM - The young generation of talents in three cushion has missed the first challenges for 2020. The European Championship under 17 and under 21 in Brussels has been cancelled in this precarious Corona era; luckily there is still a little hope for the World Championship in the Netherlands to continue the calendar. Korean's super talent Myung-Woo Cho has closed down his years of supremacy with another world title in Valencia last year. The successors are ready for taking over as the new junior stars, but are homebound for the time being. All of them without matches, without competitions, longing for better times, in the most favorable circumstances with a match table at home. And they all ask themselves: when will this miserable nightmare come to an end?

Myung-Woo Cho waved farewell to his Junior years with three world titles. He's one of the top guns in the international events now and considers the LG U victory in 2019 as his most glorious win so far. He said: ,,Most of the world top players were there, so it was a memorable win for me.'' He is known for his many training hours. ,,When there is no tournament (like now), I practice at least 12 hours per day.'' He still doesn't know when he will start his military service. ,,No, not yet.''

The recent history of the Junior World Championships: Myung-Woo Cho was on the podium for four years and fired up the Korean hegemony. Thirteen of 20 players on the World's podium were Koreans. Myung-Woo Cho won the championship in 2019 (Valencia), 2018 (Izmir) and 2016 (Hurghada), Tae-Kwan Kim was the winner in 2015 in Guri. The non-Korean players in the top four in the last five years were Cristian Montoya from Colombia (2019, 3rd place), Carlos Anguita from Spain (2018, 3rd place), Alessio D'Agata from Italy (2018, 3rd place), Carlos Anguita (2017, 1st place in Los Narejos), Gwendal Maréchal from France (2017, 3rd place), Andrés Carrion from Spain (2016, 3rd place) and Adrien Tachoire from France (2015, 3rd place). Tachoire was the world champion ahead of Myung-Woo Cho in 2014.

Kozoom had in this Corona era a talk with 12 of the young three cushion talents at home and asked them to the situation in their country, the focus on billiards, the opportunity to train and further develop, the ambitions and the leap in the dark for the second part of 2020. They are doing well and hopefully waiting. Tobias Bouerdick, the young German player, faced some bad days. He was affected by Corona, remained in quarantine in his house for two weeks, but has quickly been recovered.

The 12 players for the short interviews: (names, age, city, country and school or profession):

Myung-Woo Cho (23), from South Korea.
Billiards player
Maxime Panaia (19) from Colmar, France
Billiards player
Sam van Etten (23), from Schermerhorn, Netherlands
Just graduated, start working, semi- billiard professional
Andrés Carrion (24), from Castalla/Allicante, Spain.
Working in a factory
Denizcan Akkoca (17), from Sinop, Turkey
High School
Mahmoud Ayman (21) from Cairo, Egypt.
Faculty of Music education
Tobias Bouerdick (24) from Dortmund, Germany
Sales ThyssensKrupp
Nikolaus Kogelbauer (18) from Vienna, Austria.
Last year school
Alessio D'Agata (19) from Catania, Italy
Taking decision soon
Cristian Camilo Montoya (18), from Cali, Colombia
Working in billiard club
Nick Rosier (18), from Kieldrecht, Belgium
School/work
Lukas Mortensen (18) from Aarhus, Denmark
Business College

Kozoom/Frits Bakker: How do you experience this phase or period in your career as a young billiard player: are you satisfied with the progress? How are the opportunities for further development in your country?

Maxime Panaia: I'm very satisfied with my progress; but I planned to practice more. There is still a lot to learn. In my country we luckily have federal internships to practice. I want to thank the people who support young players in France.

Alessio D'Agata: I've been playing billiards since I was 11 years old, I've grown up at the billiard table and I can say that personally, it's a difficult time both in my career and in daily life. I'm not very satisfied with my progress, because it's really minimal. Nonetheless, I don't want to complain, it's up to me only to understand why there are no certain improvements. More and more people in my country are approaching billiards trying to understand the secrets. That makes me satisfied. We all know how complex our sport seems through the eyes of the public.

Andrés Carrion: My progress makes me satisfied. I have achieved many junior titles, as I wanted. And right now, I am allowed to play when I can in international competitions, and little by little make more progress. Why not try to be more professional every day.

Myung-Woo Cho: I am very satisfied for my progress in my career. In Korea, I see the potential for my growth to be unlimited.

Tobias Bouerdick: The phase from youth to adult is very difficult. I have recognized a mental weakness that I am currently improving and I already see success. Training in Germany is organized three times a year by the federation. Sometimes we get financial support for World Cups. I think you have to decide early which way to go. I decided to learn a profession. You won't be able to become a professional like that, I'm aware of this, but I still want to train a lot to improve my skills and will see where it leads to.

Mahmoud Ayman: For me it's a matter of time, how I get used to act in the current situation. It's a bit hard to not keep practicing for more than 3 consecutive weeks, it's a challenge. My country is doing well in these circumstances. Most important is to keep our lives safe.

Denizcan Akkoca: I'm happy with the current state of my career, but of course I'm working hard to still be better. I'm convinced that my achievements increase. Billiards in my country is good enough. And I believe that it will be much better every year. We have many successful players around the world and the number of young players is growing.

Sam van Etten: This season, I made the switch from focusing on the classic disciplines towards 3-cushion. This is a year of learning, however, I am nog easily satisfied with my progress. I'm glad to play in the highest league in Holland as well as in Belgium, providing me lots of stuff to learn and improve. I enjoy monthly trainings with our federation coach Raimond Burgman. And I would like to do training stages abroad to meet other strong players.

Cristian Montoya: These are hard times for all of us, without competition. I want to improve all the time, but we can't show it in matches. I do my training in the Master club, better known as the Campiño club where I work. We must keep calm these days; take care for our parents and grandparents. I help them in the house with cleaning and in the afternoons, I watch the videos of Jaspers and Caudron.

Lukas Mortensen: Over the last few seasons, I have been very pleased with my progress. This year, it looks like mentally I feel a lot stronger. I am very lucky that I have the possibility to train and learn from some of the best Danish players like Thomas Andersen, Lars Dunch and I have been lucky to have Tony Carlsen as my trainer for the last years. We don't have the most players, but we do have a lot of world class players. So, I feel very fortunate that I can get challenged in every match I play.

Nikolaus Kogelbauer: I'm happy with my development so far. I'm playing well and enjoy the game more than ever. The Austrian federation helps me a lot, for example by inviting players like Martin Horn to practice with him. There is a lot to improve and my ambition is to be a professional one day.

Nick Rosier: What I can say is that I'm doing well so far, speaking about my progress. Mainly because my monthly lessons from Jef Philipoom and Eddy Leppens. And they also follow young players well outside.

Kozoom/Frits Bakker: This is a strange and unpredictable season for sportsmen, including young talents. How do you deal with this situation in the Corona era as a young player?

Maxima Panaia: The situation is very delicate: I have to stay at home to preserve health for me and our loved ones. Personally, I can't train anymore, but I'm looking forward to start again. Health comes first.

Alessio D'Agata: In billiards, as in life, we sometimes find ourselves facing obstacles that may seem insurmountable to us. What can we do when they are showing up? We are the victims, or we make the impossible things possible. I humbly believe that I can give advice to my young sports friends: take the positive from this situation, be sure it's just a bad time from which all of us will come out fortified. We can deal with the situation with awareness and motivation, so that we can defeat this virus.

Myung-Woo Cho: I hope everybody stays healthy, and with hard work and practice, I hope to produce good results during the next tournaments.

Sam van Etten: I really miss playing matches in the leagues, being very early in my 3 cushion career. But luckily I can do my daily practice with my table at home. The other ambition is: reading theory books and discover new things to expand my knowledge. Watching matches on Kozoom is a training for me as well.

Tobias Bouerdick: I was affected by Corona, so I had to suspend for some time. I had to stay at home for 2 weeks, which is the prescribed quarantine in Germany. Now I feel good again. Fortunately, since I have a table at home, I can train at any time. I miss the official games to measure myself against other players at high level. Health is more important than any game now, be it billiards or any other sport.

Denizcan Akkoca: The Corona virus horrified the whole world and it affected billiards deeply. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon. I have to deal with the situation, staying at home all the time. I am following my lessons at home, playing an instrument and doing sport. We continue our lessons. Watching billiards in my spare time.

Lukas Mortensen: All billiard clubs in Denmark are closed, so for nearly all people it is impossible to train. I can do it every day, because of our billiard room in my family's house. But it's difficult to motivate, because nobody can say when we can play our next game.

Andrés Carrion: Now I have been without playing for three weeks. The important thing is to stay at home to pass this situation as soon as possible.

Nikolaus Kogelbauer: The Austrian government shut down all clubs three weeks ago, which is why I can't practice. That is very frustrating, because I played very well recently. I really do hope that we will be able to restart soon.

Mahmoud Ayman: The first time I have to deal with something like this in my career. So, I stay at home, making music, watching some old billiard events and nothing else but waiting.

Cristian Montoya: We all hope that it returns to normal very soon.

Nick Rosier: I'm very lucky to have a table at home where I can practice whenever I want.

Kozoom/Frits Bakker: What are you looking forward to for this season, what do you expect when the crisis is going in the right direction again?

Tobias Bouerdick: I'm looking forward to meet many billiard friends and play lots of matches. I hope, of course, that I twill all return to normalcy in public life. I'm currently assuming that game operation will not continue until September. Want to prepare well for the next season.

Sam van Etten: I'm mostly looking forward to playing games in my teams. I like to feel the tension towards the games. The motivation from my teammates and the excitement for the games is what I miss the most now.

Denizcan Akkoca: The championship is one of my goals, trying to win a few legs, as well as I was very motivated for the European championship.

Myung-Woo Cho: My goal is to win my first World Cup.

Cristian Montoya: My golden dream, to be world champion, is still in my head. I need to qualify for the Pan Americans and then will play the World championship, where I took the bronze medal last year.

Nikolaus Kogelbauer: Unfortunately the European championship has been cancelled; I hope that the CEB will choose me to go to the World championship. If we are lucky, the Europeans under 21 will be held in a couple of months that would be fantastic.

Maxima Panaia: If Corona will disappear quickly, there is the last Masters tournament first, followed by the French championship, I am impatient to play there. And we hope for the French team championship in Division 2, where I play for Courbevoie.

Alessio d'Agata: I just hope that everything returns at first or at least that the situation stabilizes, so that we can return to our lives. And resume practicing our wonderful sport.

Nick Rosier: Because of these hard times, all of the tournaments coming up are cancelled. I hope when it's over, we can play as much as possible to make up for the lost days.

Mahmoud Ayman: This is my last year as a junior player, I finished 1st at the final ranking for national juniors and keep my title for the 3rd year in a row. My ambition to keep it all in the right direction. I'll be able to retain my strength of playing at utmost level again to compete in the international events. Stay safe all of you, let's get through this together.

Andrés Carrion: Just hope I can finish the season. There are many important competitions to finish. And then, start the new season with everything updated.

Lukas Mortensen: I should have played the Euro Youth, but it was obviously cancelled. We hope that CEB will find a new date, because a lot of young players look forward. I was facing lots of tournaments in the coming months, all of them are cancelled.