PORTO - The main draw in the Porto World Cup is coming up, but already the Vietnamese school is impressing again. Three Vietnamese (always Tran's, Nguyen's and Thai's) finished with three players in the top of the final qualifying round. Only Caudron, Karakurt and Bury were slightly better in average. The exponent of the Vietnamese was TTT Nguyen, as he is called, who not only excelled with a run of 21, but most of all with a finish of 9 against Glenn Hofman. The match resonated long afterwards in the run-up to the main draw in this World Cup. Glenn Hofman started with 8, TTT Nguyen reacted with 11. The finish was even more exciting. The Dutchman ran to a match point with 5, but missed a simple three rail shot. The Vietnamese, on a score of 31, started his catch-up race, made a capital lucky ball in between and miraculously finished with 9: 40-39 in 15 innings.
That brought Tran Thanh Tu Nguyen a place at the top of the rankings and Hofman with a superb average (1.926) a position as best runner-up and first substitute. Frédéric Caudron led the day's rankings with two great wins (40 in 16 and 17) and the leading position among the 12 group winners. Berkay Karakurt and Jérémy Bury, after a miraculous escape, completed the top three.
The eight groups for the main draw on Thursday:
Group A: Dick Jaspers, Berkay Karakurt, Birol Uymaz, Naser Awwad
Group B: Quyet Chien Tran, Frédéric Caudron, Javier Vera, Manuel Rui Costa
Group C: Myung Woo Cho, Jung Han Heo, Glenn Hofman, Jose Miguel Soares
Group D: Torbjörn Blomdahl, Myeong Jong Cha, Jérémy Bury, Sergio Jimenez
Group E: Eddy Merckx, Dimitrios Seleventas, Phuong Vinh Bao, Thanh Luc Tran
Group F: Jun Tae Kim, Tolgahan Kiraz, Martin Horn, Tran Thanh Tu Nguyen
Group G: Haeng Jik Kim, Tayfun Tasdemir, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Peter Ceulemans
Group H: Marco Zanetti, Peter De Backer, Sameh Sidhom, Hong Chiem Thai.
The summary of the latest qualifiers:
Group A:
Jérémy Bury takes an option on the win by beating Huub Wilkowski 40-25 in 22. The Dutchman may pack his bags after also being trounced by Mexican Javier Vera after a reasonable start. Vera's catch-up race with runs of 9 and 10 in the closing stages closes the door. So it goes between Frenchman Bury and Vera in the day's end. The 57-year-old Mexican gets the winning carom on the table in the closing stages of the match, but misses. Bury shows his mental strenghth and finishes the match, after which Vera misses the equaliser from the break.
Group B:
Japan's not too well-known Atsushi Kiyota first distances himself from Turk Goren in a very mediocre game over 45 innings (40-29). Nikos Polychronopoulos does much better in 25 innings and keeps the odds in his own hands for his match against Kiyota. That one goes to the Greek with a comfortable score: 40-26 in 23.
Group C:
The race is erratic and unpredictable: three players finish with 2 match points, Sergio Jimenez is the best in average with 1.434. The Spaniard owes this to his victory over Chang Hoon Seo 40-18 in 17, the best game of the group. Jose Maria Mas, who beats Jimenez in the first game 40-26 in 29, later drops to last place.
Group D:
The four players are evenly matched, as already in the first game between two of the youngest players in the World Cups it turns into to a draw. Maxime Panaia fights back from a deficit against Amir Ibraimov with a run of six in the closing innings when Ibraimov falters in scoring. Tolgahan Kiraz, the third player, has the win up for grabs, but Panaia shows his fighting spirit: he equalises with 7, 3 and 3 in the last three innings. The final game has to decide: Kiraz is the better of Ibraimov by 40-31 in 31. Maxime Panaia is also the highest in average with two ties, but finishes as runner-up after Kiraz.
Group E:
Hong Chiem Thai, another one of those strong Vietnamese, grabs the win at the expense of Birol Uymaz. That happens in the last game, in which Thai starts with 13, Uymaz misses the chance to come back in a moderate part and Thai goes to a big lead with 10: 28-11 in 11. It takes a long time for the Vietnamese to finish, but Uymaz, far from being back, does not even come close: 40-17 in 19. Abu Taleh is hopeless with low averages.
Group F:
Ahmet Alp makes the forcing against Peter Ceulemans and leads after 5, 4 and 6 with 35-16 in 22. The win is up for grabs, but the Turk falls victim to an unexpected slump. The eager Ceulemans still comes back in the final sprint with 5, 3 and 3 and even finishes first. Alp can still counter score with 3 for 40-40. Ceulemans takes courage from that unexpected success and outclasses Omer Karakurt: after a start with 6, six times a 3 and another 6, he is already out of range at 35-7 in 13 and finishes after a series of zeros from his opponent at 40-17 in 20.
Group G:
Berkay Karakurt is sovereign leader in the group with Kostistansky and Orak. The Turk wins his two matches and has 2,000 on average, making him the number two in this qualifying round.
Group H:
Frédéric Caudron shows his amazing form, first in the match against Sam van Etten with 40-21 in 17 and later also against Ruben Legazpi, who has no chance to come close to Caudron: 40-13. Among others, the Belgian makes a 14 and can prepare for a nice duel in the group in the main draw with No 1 ranked player Quyet Chien Tran.
Group I:
Young Greek Dimitrios Seleventas wins over Gökhan Salman and draws against Gwendal Maréchal, making him the leader with 3 match points and a modest 1.212.
Group J:
Two Belgians and one Dutchman show up in a nice fight, in which Peter De Backer is more or less surprisingly the best. He wins his two games against Roland Forthomme and Jean Paul de Bruijn in 26 and 43 innings. Forthomme only beats De Bruijn, the Dutchman playing well below his capabilities with 0.985.
Group K:
The trio with TTT Nguyen and Glenn Hofman gets a thrilling finale in the group in which Jeffrey Jorissen with two losses and 1,000 plays no role. Best runner-up Glenn Hofman, after the 40-39 loss against Nguyen, is one of the best players in these final preliminary rounds with the third best average.
Group L:
The third Vietnamese is called Thanh Luc Tran, who takes the lead in a very solid group with a Colombian and a Korean. He wins his two games against Cataño and Hwang and finishes with 1.739 on average.
The second best in average, Berkay Karakurt
The amazing TTT Nguyen, one of the better Vietnamese again
Peter De Backer, one of three Belgians to survive the last prerounds
Daily rankings:
- Frédéric Caudron 4-2,424-14
- Berkay Karakurt 4-2,000-11
- Jérémy Bury 4-1,818-7
- Thanh Luc Tran 4-1,739-7
- Tran Thanh Tu Nguyen 4-1,702-11
- Nikos Polychronopoulos 4-1,666-8
- Hong Chiem Thai 4-1,632-13
- Peter De Backer 4-1,159-6
- Peter Ceulemans 3-1,379-8
- Tolgahan Kiraz 3-1,290-9
- Dimitrios Seleventas 3-1,212-9
- Sergio Jimenez 2-1,434-9
Three runners-up:
Glenn Hofman 2-1,926-8
Javier Vera 2-1,795-10
Birol Uymaz 2-1,500-12