EL GOUNA - Dave Christiani, the best winner of the day in the El Gouna Word Cup, was not well rewarded for his efforts. Two days before the start of the main tournament, the Dutchman will face his countryman Jean Paul de Bruijn tomorrow: a former top-5 player who has shown tremendous form in the past weeks. The battle to survive the preliminaries has been launched. Not only the Dutch clash will be among the highlights of a wonderful schedule. What to say about Birol Uymaz and Ahmed Bayatli, two close friends, who meet each other? Martin Horn against Kostas Papakonstantinou, Kostas Kokkoris facing Arnim Kahofer, Hakan Incekara in a Turkish clash with Savas Bulut, Can Capak against Tonny Carlsen and Ahmet Alp vs Dionisis Tsokontas?
Dave Christiani and Martin Horn, two real contenders to reach the main event, have a certain advantage: they already have the experience of two days in the preliminaries, that should give them a better feeling than Jean Paul de Bruijn, Kostas Papakonstantinou, Juan David Zapata, Can Capak, Savas Bulut and the others who just arrived in Egypt and are thrown to the lions.
The first selections have been made. As of Tuesday morning, more big guns are called to the tables. Players with averages from 0.300 to 0.500, played this Monday in the Mövenpick arena, will no longer enter the room on the third day. Yet it seemed that the first day of the preliminaries was marked by a slightly higher level than the second day. Dave Christiani won his two matches with 1.46 overall average, followed by Juan David Zapata with 1.428, Martin Horn and Savas Gungor were third (1.333) before Tonny Carlsen and Omer Karakurt with 1.250, Manol Minaoglu 1.090 and Jung-Wan Lim 1.052.
Jung-Ju Shin, who played one draw, took 14th place in the day ranking with 1.363, David Martinez with one loss 1.035 and Sung-Kyu Oh closed the sixteen winners list with 0.951.
Jiseung Han, a semi-finalist at the World Junior championship, was the first on the reserve list with 1.276, Sang Ku Kang, as runner-up, was linked to Martin Horn and Kostas Papakonstantinou for his next performance.
Two interesting groups for tomorrow, with three Egyptians and Ahmed as first name: Ahmed Emam, Ahmed Hatem and Ahmed Abdallah. And one with three Koreans: Young-Hoon Lee, Sung-Kyu Oh and Kwang-Yeol Park.
Who didn't make it for the next round with not enough points or too low averages? Tae-Kwan Kim, the junior world champion who was dethroned, with 0.919, Gülsen Degener, who played an excellent last match with 30 in 28 innings, with 0.842 and Ayman Mahmoud, the young Egyptian, with one match point and 0.828.
The run of fourteen Martin Horn against Youssef Ossama (30-9 in 17) was one of the highlights on the second day. Jung-Ju Shin defeated Roman Bachmaier in 16 innings, Dave Christiani won in 15 innings against Ronald van Geyt (30-10) and David Martinez, who started with a loss against Giuseppe Tirannio, then recovered with 30-7 in 17 against Claus Foge.
Martin Horn, excellent run of 14
The day ranking:
1 Dave Christiani 4-1.463-8
2 Juan David Zapata 4-1.428-8
3 Martin Horn 4-1.333-14
4 Savas Gungor 4-1.333-6
5 Omer Karakurt 4-1.250-7
6 Tonny Carlsen 4-1.250-6
7 Manol Minaoglu 4-1.090-6
8 Jung-Wan Lim 4-1.052-7
9 Jose Antonio Carrasco 4-0.983-6
10 Jan Hudak 4-0.909-6
11 Hiroshi Sasaki 4-0.714-6
12 Radek Novak 4-0.645-5
13 Ahmed Hatem 4-0.588-4
14 Jung-Ju Shin 3-1.363-10
15 David Martinez 2-1.035-9
16 Sung-Kyu Oh 2-0.951-5.
Omer Karakurt, a former junior champion, meets the new junior world champion Myung-Woo Cho
Gülsen Degener, out of the game despite a strong finish: 30 in 28