Top thousand, no... but playing billiards?

SUWON – Is he to be found in the top-1000 of the world? I don’t think so. But can he play? On the third day of the World Cup in Suwon, Sang Pil Um made it clear that he is a force to be reckoned with, when the final qualifying round is played tomorrow (thursday).
The Korean may have had an unspectacular start in his flight: een 2-1 victory over Hyun Min Seo with a 0.952 average. But in his second match…holy moly!

Sang Pil Um started his match against German Frank Spruzina with nothing less than a maximum run of 15, after his opponent had missed from the dots.

It was one of the two highlights of the day, because Hyun Suk Kim had also made a 15, allbeit in his fourth inning. This Korean was also responsible for eliminating American Hugo Patino, who started with a victory over Satory Yoneyama (2-1, 0.933), but then fell victim to the ambitions of Hyun-Suk Kim (1-2, 1.904/1.200).

,,That Sang Pil Um, that’s a tough cookie'', is what Roland Forthomme, who has this qualifier in his group tomorrow, will have thought. Third member is Japanese Youichirou Mori, the Belgian has his work cut out for him, if he wants to make it to the main tournament.

Quoc Nguyen Nguyen, the Vietnamese with the odd name, was on top of the list after the third day. His average was not that impressive (1.276, high run 6); but he was the first among those with 4 match points and no lost sets.
Hyung Bum Kim was second with 1.200.

Hyung Kon Kim had the highest average (1.795, hoogste serie 11), before Hyun Suk Kim with 1.729, high run 15.
Whom did we lose on this third day? Young Chull Kim, the chart leader on the first two days. He scored 1.300 today, but his one loss saw him end up in the first reserve seat.

The second and third best averages were scored by Nam Ho Sin (1.543) and Minh Cam Ma (1.529), but both had to settle for consolation prizes: fourth and fifth reserve.

Swede Nalle Olsson started the qualification with a loss, but he repaired the damage in his second match, thereby saving his qualification: 2-0 and 1.722 against Nam Ho Sin.