Dani Sánchez overcomes his jet lag

LIMA - This morning at five o'clock, Peruvian time, he was wide awake. ,,I suffer from my jet lag and I can't sleep,'' said Dani Sánchez, who took the flight in Spain with his two compatriots Javier Palazón and Antonio Ortiz to the Peruvian capital on Sunday, today he played his first match in the World championship.

Six hours after his wake up, in the arena, everything was different. Dani Sánchez entered the billiard room as if he just had slept two days, he looked very fit and ready for playing billiards at top-level. And so he does: Sánchez beats in a great style the Portugese Paolo Andrade and shows an average of 2.250, the best so far in the tournament.

The Spaniard made a demonstration of his opening match and immediately showed his intentions. He will fight with all his spirit to defend the title he won in Sluiskil last year. The reigning champion is armed to the teeth, he looks fit and ready to counter all the attacks on his position. Paolo Andrade, his teammate in FC Porto, could just threaten him in the second set, when the Portugese missed a setbal at 15-14 by a kiss. Sánchez won the set and finished with 15-1 in the fourth set in only four innings.

That was much better than his competitors at the other tables. Kyung-Roul Kim found his rhythm quickly after a bad start against Radek Novak (8-15 in the first set) and won the next three sets 15-9, 15-2, 15-2, averaged 1.656.

Dick Jaspers defeated the Argentine substitute Fabian Oliveto 3-0 (1.285) in a match which was disturbed a few times by a scoreboard that didn't work. Eddy Merckx had a slow start against the Egyptian El Messery, who was'nt an inspiration for the Belgian with his bad game and average (0.594).