SEOUL - Turk Birol Uymaz is one of the few Europeans still in the race for wins in the PBA tournament that ends this week. Spaniard Andres Carrion has advanced to the top 16 in the Welcome Savings Bank tournament for men and women. Frédéric Caudron and Filippos Kasidokostas were eliminated in the first rounds. The two remaining Europeans in the last 32 were Carrion and Uymaz. In the ladies, four Koreans are left for the semifinals.
Birol Uymaz in an excellent match defeated the strong Vietnamese Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, who transferred to the UMB last year. The Turk won 3-1, averages of 2.087 and 0.818. Andres Carrion won 3-2 over Kuk-seong Lee and is already among the best eight.
Frédéric Caudron, who won the previous tournament, ran into a surprising opponent. The 50-year-old Korean Hyun suk Kim debuts at the PBA is a billiard commentator at MBC Sports and amateur billiard player nicknamed "Bomber" when he was active 20 years ago. Now that he has joined the PBA, he immediately caused a resounding surprise by beating Caudron 3-1 (1,200 average for Caudron). Filippos Kasidokostas lost to Hae-chang Jeong on penalties. Belgian Eddy Leppens lost in the round with the best 32 to Won-jun Choi 3-0. Also eliminated in the first rounds were David Martinez, David Zapata, Can Capak, Javier Palazon, Antonio Montes and Savas Bulut.
The players in the women's semifinals, after 8 Korean women also played the quarterfinals, are Jung-suk Lim, Gap-sun Kim, Ye-eun Kim and Bo-mi Kim. Cambodian Sruong Pheavy lost to Ye-eun Kim in the best 16 with 3-2 (0.824), Orie Hida, the former world champion at UMB, lost 2-0 to Jin-ah Kim with only 0.476 on average.