3-Cushion
PELOPONNESOS - ,,The world has changed’’, said 50-year-old Swede Torbjörn Blomdahl, after he just had finished a match over forty caroms in ten innings in the early session of the Peloponnesos World Cup. He looked at the table next to him and saw an even better score: 41-year-old Korean Jae Guen Kim won his match in nine innings.
The world has changed... of course Torbjörn means the world where he feels at home, in the world of three cushion.
How often is it said in these days during the World Cup session in Greek, where the Asians (especially Koreans) set the tone and the Europeans have to put up a hard fight to stay upright.
Torbjörn Blomdahl succeeded so far: he remains the leader of the world rankings after this tournament. Eddy Merckx, Frédéric Caudron, Marco Zanetti, Dani Sánchez, Jérémy Bury and Dick Jaspers, very famous players in the circuit, were eliminated in the early rounds.
The world has changed.
Billiards has become a lottery with shorter matches and less time to score the points. The established players said it many times. The races are shorter (to 40 points), but also flashier and more exciting for the audience. ,,But is it so nice to see that Jae Guen Kim and I finish our matches with a 40-9 score’’?, said Blomdahl. ,,Can you talk about tension for the public with such a score?''
He is, like most top players, in favor of former systems, like a match to fifty points, others are pleading for the set system.
The international federations have made a choice, they will not change. As a result, the top of the ranking is much wider and the tension higher, with lots of 40-40 matches in this tournament.
Dick Jaspers, eliminated in the first round, was looking for an own explanation. The Dutch, former champion: ,,Maybe I'm getting older and it is more difficult to increase my games. I missed points, today, when I previously thought about how to hit the cue ball, which English, how much speed... but I forgot to think about how to avoid the kiss. That never happened to me before.’’
But is Dick Jaspers (48 ) too old as a top player? Marco Zanetti, although outplayd by Ruben Legazpi with penalty shots today, is slightly older feels himself in the best years of his career.
Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Merckx (44 and 45 of age) are also not the youngest. Torbjörn Blomdahl: ,,I had some minor years, but then I came back, maybe stronger than before.’’
The Korean invasion, with at least ten world-class players, is a more plausible explanation for the changes at the top. Of eight players who were launched in the last sixteen yesterday, there were still eight Koreans in the tournament.’’
Today, another Korean was eliminated, of course: Jae Ho Cho was outplayed by Jae Guen Kim, his compatriot, who is 41 and not even among the top ten in his country, is the owner of the largest billiard center in Incheon with twenty tables. He recorded the best match of the tournament so far, nine innings with runs of ten and twelve.’’