ANSAN - Two European billiards masters got the new PBA season off to a shining start with victories in the first two events. Frédéric Caudron won the second event in the late Korean evening on Monday in a final in which he was superior against Turk Birol Uymaz. The Belgian stylist is back at the top of the ranking in the PBA tour after Semih Sayginer took the lead in the first tournament a fortnight ago. In the Silkroad & Ansan championship, Caudron sharpened his reputation as one of the absolute stars of global three-cushion. Birol Uymaz, who didn’t have a great record list in his UMB years, could not prevent that. The set scores in the final (4-1) were 15-13, 15-3, 15-5, 13-15 and 15-11. The averages over the five sets in the final: Caudron 1.872, Uymaz 1.237.
This was the sixth win for Caudron in the PBA after his three world titles in the UMB (Bogota, 1999, Antwerp, 2013 and Santa Cruz, 2017) and a total of 21 World Cup victories. It took three tournaments in the PBA, after the Belgian's sensational transfer, before Caudron won his first PBA Tour in a final against Min-Gu Kang. After that, he also won finals against Filippos Kasidokostas, David Zapata, Jae-ho Cho, Eddy Leppens and now his sixth against Birol Uymaz. The Turk grabbed next to the top prize and remains on one win so far: the final that Uymaz won against Jae-guen Kim ahead of Belgians Caudron and Leppens on the third podium spots.
In the majestic arena, Caudron celebrated his victory with subdued joy compared to his first successes in the PBA. He hugged his opponent Birol Uymaz, with whom he plays in the team competition in the Welcome Savings Bank team, put his stylish signature on the match billiards, accepted the cheque for 100,000,000 Korean won, praised the ambiance during this tour and thanked all his fans and friends for the support. ''Most of all I thank my wife Amal, my number one wife in the world.''
Birol Uymaz lost twice in a former semi-final and now in the final after beating his compatriot Lütfi Cenet 4-1 in the semi-final, Kwang-yeol Park in the quarter-final and another Turk one round earlier: Savas Bulut 3-2 with a one carom difference. Bulut, by the way, had first eliminated two other Turks: Adnan Yüksel and Can Capak.
Frédéric Caudron first beat Sang-pil Eom 3-1 in the decisive stretch, slipped past Ji-hoon Sun 3-2 in the quarter-finals and in the semi-finals, the Belgian won against Vietnamese Minh Cam Ma 4-1.
The Silkroad Ansan Championship already said goodbye to top players like Jae-ho Cho, Dong-koong Kang, David Martinez and Nguyen Quoc Nguyen in the early rounds, after the two strong Turks Semih Sayginer and Murat Naci Coklu had already been beaten in the second round of play and David Zapata even in the first round with 128. Dani Sánchez had a false start just like in his first PBA tournament. The Spanish four-time world champion lost to David Martinez from the penalty spot in the first round of play. The Spanish clash finished 2-2 in sets, after which the decision to continue or be eliminated was made from the penalty spot. Martinez scored once, Sánchez missed from the spots.
The later winner Frédéric Caudron slipped through the eye of the needle in his match against Do-young Ko, when the Korean led 2-1 in sets and started with 13 in the decisive set to 15 points. Caudron miraculously rectified the situation and won the match 3-2.
Women's victory went to Cambodian Sruong Pheavy.
The live broadcast of the final was watched by 35,000 billiards fans on the PBA channel of YouTube in the final and also broadcast by Kozoom for the first time.
The next PBA and LPBA tournament of nine tournaments and a World Cup in total, is from July 19 to 31.
Frédéric Caudron on the way to his sixth PBA victory
Birol Uymaz, brave attempt, but no second PBA win
Sruong Pheavy celebrates her victory in the ladies