Luxor World Cup officially opened

LUXOR - The 32 players that qualified for the main draw at the Luxor World Cup, have launched the knock-out stage. The Sonesta St. George Hotel, on the banks of the Nile, was visited by lots of politicians, city officials, other invited guests and board members from the federation for the official opening ceremony.

UMB President Farouk Barki spoke the opening words and thanked the city of Luxor for the hospitality. ,,It's the fifteenth time in a row that Egypt is hosting a World Cup'', said Barki. He also hinted that Luxor is probably for the last time on the calendar. For next year, although, the world championship is planned to be held in this city, but there are plans to move to Cairo. ,,We're thinking about an organization at the foot of the pyramids'', Barki made clear.

The number one in the world, Dick Jaspers, opened the tournament at midday against Birol Uymaz, Sung-Won Choi, former world champion, started against Xuan Cuong Ma, Sameh Sidhom, the Egyptian champion, against Jae Guen Kim, the world champion teams and Haeng-Jik Kim against Minh Cam Ma.

The further schedule for today, Thursday:

14.00:
Jean Paul de Bruijn-Quyet Chien Tran
Eddy Merckx-Myung Woo Cho
Jae Ho Cho-Can Capak
Torbjörn Blomdahl-Semih Sayginer

16.00:
Dani Sánchez-Riad Nady
Murat Naci Coklu-Adnan Yüksel
Nikos Polychronopoulos-Dong Koong Kang
Jung Han Heo-Ihab El Messery

18.00:
Marco Zanetti-Erick Tellez
Jérémy Bury-Hyung Bum Hwang
Tayfun Tasdemir-Choong Bok Lee
Frédéric Caudron-Eddy Leppens.

The players during the ceremony

UMB president Farouk Barki (middle) with the invited guests

The trophys for the World Cup