3-Cushion
ISTANBUL - The competitors for sixteen places in the final round of the World Cup in Istanbul are going into a tough battle in the next hours. The competition is completely open. Two winners in the first rounds, Javier Palazón and Jae Guen Kim, finished over two average, but that's no guarantee for qualification.
Lütfi Cenet (with a win in 22 innings) and Jae Guen Kim compete in their mutual match who will surely continue. Hyung Bum Hwang won his second match in the group against Kostas Papakonstantinou but he lost to Jae Ho Cho (40-39) in his first appearance, so he has to wait the show down.
Two Vietnamese players, Vinh Ly The Anh Vu Duong played a draw. Roland Forthomme, third man in the group, beat Duong in 23 innings, but needs another victory vs The Ly.
Christian Rudolph (win in 21 against Nady) and Jean Paul de Bruijn (in 30) duel for the top spot in Group D. Murat Tüzül and Eddy Leppens both snatched the win in 22 innings against Jean Reverchon, who only scored 14 and 20 points.
The Colombian Alexander Salazar, bronze medal winner at the World championship in Antwerp, started very poor with a loss to Hakan Incekara (40-25 in 35) and is virtually eliminated. Savas Bulut still has to match with Incekara.
Berkay Karakurt made a promising start when he beat Johann Scirmbrand (40-33), on his turn the German escaped narrow to Quyet Chien Tran 40-39.
Peter Ceulemans must compete with Greek Nikos Polychronopoulos for the group win. Ruben Legazpi is on track in Group I after a victory vs Orhan Erogul.
Javier Palazón was one of the best start-ups with a victory against Selim Özden (40-26 in 19) and Murat Celik, first player in the last round of qualifications, defeated Glenn Hoffman in his first duel 40-30 in 29 innings. The Dutchman rolled over Sameh Sidhom to still have a small chance