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Ready for take off with all the top guns

09/12/2014

Published by frits bakker

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© © Harry van Nijlen/Kozoom
Sameh Sidhom in his last match: the Egyptian finished as day winner

PORTO - The last sigh of relief came from the Belgian corner in the stands, as Peter Ceulemans was only certain to advance after the very last carom of the day had been made. Two of his countrymen, Roland Forthomme and Eddy Leppens, also clawed their way into the best sixteen of the final qualification day.

It enabled Farouk Barki, after four days of preliminaries, to perform the draw for the main tournament of this World Cup. Turkish magician Semih Sayginer, back from a long absence, was the most anticipated figure of the evening. For days, he had walked around the Portugese city with a look of despair on his face.

,,My suitcase has been missing for three days already, so I don’t have a cue either’’, he told us, but it all worked out in the end. Semih Sayginer is ready to make his comeback in the World Cup arena, where Frédéric Caudron will defend his nr. 1 position, Torbjörn Blomdahl and Filippos Kasidokostas all solid on 2 and 3, and Dani Sánchez will see his qualification efforts rewarded with a chance to regain a top-12 position.

The Spaniard did not have a good start in his flight, when Vietnamese Vinh The Ly ran away from him. Sánchez fought back with a run of 12, but still lost by a single point: 40-39. His mission in the second match was clear, and he did what he had to do, beating Korean In-Won Kang with a margin and advancing thanks to his 1.795 average. Sameh Sidhom was the best winner of the day with four match points and 1.739, eight players remained unbeaten: two Vietnamese, Quyet Chien Tran and Xuan Cuong Ma ended second and third, with Quoc Nguyen Nguyen and Duc Anh Chien Nguyen also in the top sixteen.

Spain had two players: David Martinez, the young tournament revelation joining Sanchez. Roland Forthomme closed the list after his late victory over Yavus Göngördu, Murat Tüzül had a loss but stole the show with his day average of 2.142. Murat Naci Coklu was the best nr. 2 of the twelve groups with 1.772, ahead of Eddy Leppens with 1.684 (having lost to David Martinez) Pierre Soumagne with 1.652 and Peter Ceulemans with 1.645. The draw matched up Frédéric Caudron with Roland Forthomme, Dani Sánchez with Jérémy Bury and Semih Sayginer with David Martinez. A nice detail: if Blomdahl and Sayginer both win, they meet in the second round.

The twelve group winners: 1 Sidhom 1.739, 2 Tran 1.739, 3 Ma 1.702, 4 Martinez 1.702, 5 Polychronopoulos 1.454, 6 Hofman 1.428, 7 Nguyen 1.311, 8 Young Cull Kim 1.159, 9 Murat Tüzül 2.142, 10 Dani Sánchez 1.795, 11 Duc Anh Chien Nguyen 1.565, 12 Forthomme 1.375.

The main draw: 13.00: Frédéric Caudron-Roland Forthomme Jae Ho Cho-Nikos Polychronopoulos Marco Zanetti-Murat Naci Coklu Sameh Sidhom-Murat Tüzül 15.00: Tayfun Tasdemir-Peter Ceulemans Kyung-Roul Kim-Ramon Rodriguez Jérémy Bury-Dani Sánchez Eddy Merckx-Quoc Nguyen Nguyen. 17.00: Filippos Kasidokostas-Eddy Leppens Quiet Chien Tran-Joao Ferreira Dick Jaspers-Pierre Soumagne Xuan Cuong Ma-Ryuuji Umeda 21.00: Dong Koong Kang-Young Chull Kim Sung-Won Choi-Glenn Hofman David Martinez-Semih Sayginer Duc Anh Chien Nguyen-Torbjörn Blomdahl.

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