3-Cushion
HURGHADA - The 41-year-old Korean Chi-Yeon Cho just the World championship in Seoul behind him and immediately passed through to the World Cup in Hurghada. There, he impresses so far with promising matches in the first rounds. Chi-Yeon Cho is one of the new, but older players in Korea, still without points in the world rankings, so he had to start in Hurghada on the opening days.
He's the number two on the Korean ranking after a strong year in which only Jung-Han Heo was better in the national tournaments. Chi-Yeon Cho is ahead of players like Jae Ho Cho, Sung-Won Choi and Kyung-Roul Kim on the national ranking. That's significant for his high class.
,,I couldn't spend much time with playing billiards in tournaments for the last ten years'', he said on Monday morning after his first win on the second day in Hurghada. Chi-Yeon owned a billiard room with fourteen tables and had a billiard shop in Seoul. ,,I sold my business, so now I have all the time to play World Cups and other major tournaments. My goal is to climb up on the world rankings. I started practice since this year. In another billiard room in Seoul I practice four days a week, eight hours per day. And I give private lessons there.''
The World championship was not a great success for the new star in his country. Chi-Yeon Cho lost twice in his group, to Sameh Sidhom 40-22 in 15 innings and Tayfun Tasdemir 40-15 in 24 innings. ,,It was my first World championship and I was very nervous. And both my opponents played very strong.''
This morning (Monday) he started with a victory against the German Thomas Wagner after a final run of six (30-16 in 24). Chi-Yeon Cho is married to Hye-Young, has one daughter (Kibbum), the second daughter is expected for next year.
Tonight he plays for the group win against the Turk Mehmet Yavas.
Two Belgians already won in the first round: Ronny Brants defeated the Dane Claus Mosskov and Pascal Claus triumphed in his match against his compatriot Francis Forton 30-28. The young Egyptian Mahmoud Ayman is the third player in the group with the Belgians.
Pascal Claus defeated his compatriot Francis Forton.