PORTO - Will the supremacy of Asian billiard players continue in the Porto World Cup which is coming up? Following the victories of Quyet Chien Tran, Duc Minh Tran and Jung-han Heo, the Portuguese city is the venue for the 4th World Cup this year 2024 from Sunday 7 to Saturday 13 July at FC Porto's Estádio do Dragāo. Traditionally, the matches can be seen live for 7 days on AfreecaTV! So far this year, no European player has reached a World Cup final! That is seen now in the rankings so far. Quyet Chien Tran leads both the Events Ranking and the Player Ranking with Myung Woo Cho, Jun Tae Kim and Phuong Vinh Bao in prominent positions. For Europe, only Dick Jaspers, Martin Horn and Eddy Merckx play a role in the higher positions of the two rankings.
The ranking points achievable in the World Cup in Porto will replace those from Sharm el Sheikh in 2022. Myung-woo Cho defends the 80 points he gained in Egypt. The 17 seeded players are Dick Jaspers, Quyet Chien Tran (winner in Porto in 2023), Myung-woo Cho, Torbjørn Blomdahl, Eddy Merckx, Jun-tae Kim, Haeng Jik Kim, Marco Zanetti, Sameh Sidhom (finalist in 2023), Tayfun Tasdemir, Martin Horn, Phuong Vinh Bao, Myeong-jong Cha, Jung-han Heo. The wildcards in Porto go to Naser Awwad (UMB), Rui Costa and Jose Miguel Soares (organization).
The main tournament starts on Thursday 11 July with the eight groups of four players, in which Marco Zanetti is playing Sameh Sidhom, Myung Woo Cho against Jung Han Heo, Eddy Merckx against world champion Phuong Vinh Bao, Jun Tae Kim against Martin Horn and Tayfun Tasdemir against Haeng Jik Kim. The semi-finals and final are on Saturday, July 13.
Frédéric Caudron and Birol Uymaz will start on the 1st day of the qualifiers for the 3rd time in a row. In that round on Sunday, we also meet Nalle Olsson, Alex Tremoulis, Amir Ibraimov, Luca Philipoom and Adrie Demming, among others.
On Monday, Jef Philipoom, who likes to play in Portugal, comes into the schedule and other well-known players on the list are Sergio Jimenez, Maxime Panaia, Jean Reverchon, Herbert Szivacz, Serdal Bas, Peter De Back er, Lukas Mortensen, Dimitrios Selegventas, Tobias Bouerdick, Tarik Yavuz, Takeshima O and Tom Löwe.
On Tuesday, the doors swing open for Jose Juan Garcia, Pedro Gonzalez, Jose Maria Maz, Arnim Kahofer, Ahmet Alp, Ronny Lindemann Van Ly Dao, TTT Nguyen, Huberney Cataño, Joeh de Kok, Lukas Stamm, Pierre Soumagne, Jacob Sörensen, Ja In Kang, Turgay Orak, Volkan Cetin, Mehmet Goren and Kostas Kokkoris.
For 12 players and three runners-up it's off to the final qualifiers with the most famous players being: Jérémy Bury, Omer Karakurt, Glenn Hofman, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Jean Paul de Bruijn, Chang Hoon Seo, Hong Chiem Thai, Ruben Legazpi, Tolgahan Kiraz, Berkay Karakurt, Peter Ceulemans, Gwendal Maréchal, Roland Forthomme, Jeffrey Jorissen and Sam van Etten. The first match already fixed is the Hague clash between Jeffrey Jorissen and Glenn Hofman (12.30 in the Netherlands).
On the first 3 days, matches start at 11.00 local time (12.00 for Western Europe).
All matches to be seen on AfreecaTV.
The Porto World Cup podium in 2023 with Quyet Chien Tran as the winner