3-Cushion
The best of all Korean players had a favorable draw and could afford himself a little misstep. Kim-Kyung Roul won 3-1 this evening against the Spanish player who was actually the revelation of the preliminaries. Manuel Gonzalez Castrillo started on Tuesday in the tournament, survived two days and defeated even Lütfi Cenet at the last day of the qualifying in two sets of 15-14 each.
Today he was waved off by the public after a 3-1 defeat against Kim.
The winning set was awarded to him and was the only one in which Kim made some mistakes. His only compatriot in this round, Jung Han Heo, even gave away his match after a 2-0 lead against Tayfun Tasdemir. The Turk fought back like a lion and won the match 3-2 after a great endrush.
The duel between two Spaniards finished in a five-setter too, with Dani Sánchez as the winner. He defeated Sergio Jimenez 15-5 in the deciding set and an average of 1.615.
The Koreans are still with four in the main event: Kyung-Roul Kim has reached the next round and is one of the best sixteen tomorrow. Dong Kang Kung meets a fearsom opponent now: Eddy Merckx. Two other Koreans are facing each other: Chun-Won Choi, like Kyung-Roul Kim a top ten player in the world, plays against his compatriot Jae Ho Cho, who played the final two years ago.
Jung Han Heo and Tayfun Tasdemir played the best match of this evening so far. The Korean ruled in the first part and impressed with a run of twelve, the highest of the day. Tasdemir took the initiative at 2-0 behind and won the next three sets 15-8, 15-12, 15-3.
The match between Javier Teran and Roland Forthomme was bizarre for the audience, because the Belgian seemed to have a very bad day in the first two sets. He made a desperate despondent, but came back with his admirable fighting spirit. In the last set was Forthomme back to normal: he won 15-5.