3-Cushion
VILA NOVA DE GAIA – He has not picked up his cue for 4 weeks, this summer: two times two weeks of rest in the summer to relax after a long season. Martin Horn is now fit as a fiddle at the start of the new billiard year. He will need to be, he tol dus after his opening match in Porto: a victory of 40 – 23 in 21 innings.
The German nr. 10 on the world ranking went on a cruise with his wife Anja, 10 days on an AIDA cruise ship in the coastal waters of Norway. ,,Those were wonderful days.''
But as of this week, it’s all about billiards again, because even after the WC in Porto and the World Cup in Suwon, matches come fast. ,,I will be playing league matches in Belgium, Germany, Austria and The Netherlands, so high level competition every week. Inbetween, there are many important tournaments, such as the Agipi Masters and the World Cup in Hurghada''
Martin Horn has good memories of last year’s Agipi tournament, where he made it to the semi-finals, ran a 17 against former winner Sung-Won Choi and broke off against Kyung-Roul Kim in the semi’s with a 12. Horn ended that tournament with the best general average of all: 2.157.
His WC started this morning with a victory over Michael Lohse, and this afternoon he will have a tough opponent in Raimond Burgman.
Three other favorites made no mistakes this morning. Eddy Merckx took care of Adnan Yüksel, the last winner of the World Cup in Hurghada. Marco Zanetti defeated Quoc Nguyen Nguyen (40-16 in 27), Korean Jae Ho Cho had no problems with Italian Giorgio Mancini: 40-20 in 22.
The first session of the day saw four runs of 9: for Marco Zanetti, Jae Ho Cho, Eddy Merckx and Martin Horn.