'Big Kim' has many little brothers

SUWON - Where in other World Cups the start of the tournament often is a parade of unknown local players, there is the Suwon World Cup a traditional exception. The Kim's, Lee's, Choi's and Seo's have shown already in the opening sessions that the three cushion level in the width in Korea is much higher than anywhere in the world.

'Big Kim', as Kyung-Roul, the number three in the world is called by his friends, has many little brothers on the billiard table in his country. Dong-Ryong Kim starred in the first session this morning with 3.000 average (!) in his match against Jun Tae Kim.

The first conclusion after the opening: big name players, such as Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dani Sánchez and Marco Zanetti for that reason argue in favour of more quality (set systeem) than more tension (short matches to forty caroms, like at the World championship in Porto).

Today's first sessions produced the evidence in Suwon: Eddy Merckx, Murat Naci Coklu and Dick Jaspers were the only players in the entire World championship in Porto with machtes over two average. But nobody in the field of top players shone with an average over 3.000, like the first, relatively unknown Korean Dong-Ryong Kim did in two sets of fifteen points in two times five innings.

Young Chull Kim won his two sets both in eleven innings against Hyun Jun Kim (1.363), Chang Hoon Seo also left the arena with 1.363 on the score board against Ho Kim.

Twelve groups of three are launched today with only Koreans in the billiard arena. Mun Gap Choi started with a the first run of ten in the tournament in June Tae Kim, but Dong-Ryon Kim is, based on his higher average, the favorite in this group.

Many Europeans have arrived after a long trip to Suwon: Frédéric Caudron took his flight on Sunday evening, immediately after his league match and will take his time to cope with his jetlag.

 Tomorrow (Tuesday), the first Japanese, Koreans and Turks enter the tournament for the second day.