3-Cushion
Would it be Marco Zanetti who would be the last of the evening to share the top sixteen for tomorrow? Or would it be Lütfi Cenet, who was in such a good mood and got the best chances to beat his famous Italian opponent.
The 30-year old Turk obiously was impressed or to much focused on the sensational victory. He already missed seven balls to finish the fourth set before he made finally the 2-2. The deciding set, after 15-13, 6-15, 12-15 and 15-12, was a bizarre repetition. Cenet got three match balls, missed them all and gave Zanetti a free pass to profit by 15-14. The lucky Italian now meets Dick Jaspers instead of going home after one match.
Martin Horn was at that late hour, after a stiff starter against Jérôme Barbeillon, already thinking about tomorrow. He defeated his French opponent 7-15, 15-7, 15-5 and 15-7. The Japanese Kouji Funaki whipped Nikos Polychronopoulos out of the event after striking score of 15-1 in the winning set.
And so the World Cup in Hurghada gets himself ready for the final rounds with sixteen players tomorrow morning (11.00, 10.00 Paris time) and in the afternoon at 13.30. The winners will meet eachother later in the evening in the quarterfinals.
Dick Jaspers in today's matches played with the highest average (2.428) of the 32 players, two others also played over two: Kyung-Roul Kim 2.160, Frédéric Caudron 2.115.
Roland Forthomme, of course, signed for the highest run with his fifteen against Jaspers, Sung-Won Choi and Eddy Leppens made runs or twelve and Tonny Carlsen and Dick Jaspers runs of ten.
In the first session tomorrow morning will play: Caudron-Sidhom, Leppens-Tasdemir, Bury Sciacca and Choi-Kim.
And in the second session: Palazón-Sánchez, Kasidokostas-Philipoom, Horn-Funaki and Jaspers-Zanetti.