BURSA - Where are Tonny Carlsen, Glenn Hoffman, Dave Christiani, Barry van Beers and William Oh after two days at the World Cup in Bursa? Short matches (William Oh in thirteen innings, Barry van Beers 15), high runs (William Oh 14, Tonny Carlsen 13) were not enough to withstand the fierce competition. The second day was a battlefield for some known Europeans, who were among the contenders for the main tournament. The Vietnamese Duc Anh Chien Nguyen was one of the stars with a match in 12 innings.
Selim Ozden was the winner of the day with 1.666 followed by Il Sung Jeong 1.500, Seung Jin Lee 1.333, Muharrem Peker and Furkan Senel both 1.276. No less than eight Turks were among the sixteen group winners, completed by five Koreans, one Dutchman, one Spaniard and one Vietnamese. Tonny Carlsen, William Oh and Barry van Beers were the numbers one, two and three on the reserve list.
This World Cup should have been the tournament in which three Dutch sub-top players launched a great come-back, but the illusion was killed after two rounds. Glenn Hoffman, Barry van Beers and Dave Christiani were eliminated after two performances in their group and must go back to the Netherlands. The strong Danish veteran Tonny Carlsen is outplayed by Jeong Il Sung, despite a better average.
They were all victims of some outside players who didn't fear the reputations of their opponents. Tonny Carlsen struggled to survive in his match against the Korean Sung Il Jeong, fought back with a run of 13 (to 17-16), but was knocked down in the final stage 30-23 in 12 innings. With his average of 1.766 Carlsen was second in his group, Jeong was the winner with 1.500.
Barry van Beers had a promising start in his match against the Greek Spiridon Lianos (30-17 in 15) and was supposed to put up the fight against the Turk Selim Ozden. The best group of the day, with matches in 19, 15 and 17 innings, however was won by Özden with 1.666 after he defeated Van Beers in the decisive match (30-20 in 17).
William Oh played extremely strong in his first appearance against Myoung Gyoo Park (30-12 in 13, run of 14), but lost his chances in his second against the Vietnamese Anh Duc Chien Nguyen, who shone with the best match of the day in 12 innings.
Glenn Hoffman was not in his best form despite a victory in his first match against Hakan Adiguzel (30-16 in 22). The other Turk in the group, Muharrem Peker, outplayed Hofman by a margin (30-18 in 21) and was the group winner. Hofman finished in the middle of the losers group.
The top two winners on the first day, Ümit Demircan and Furkan Senel, also survived the second day unbeaten. The most tension was going on in Group C with two Germans and one Korean. It was a neck-to-neck race decided on average: Ji Hun Ahn finished first 1.177 ahead of Ramazan Durdun 1.170 and Wolfgang Wolf 1.017.
Jose Maria Mas remained below his level in his first, but recovered in time and reached the next round thanks to a strong finish against Murat Celik. Omer Karakurt, a former junior top player, was surprised in his second match by Dutchman Raymon Groot 30-23 in 19. Yet, the Turk finished on top in this group with two pointers on average: 1.432.
Volkan Cetin was the revelation of the day. The Dutchman of Turkish origin was unluckily defeated by Claus Foge (30-29 in 33), but played the match of his life in the second against Im Gwon Kim, whome he left behind 30-10 in 13. ,,I had some luck in my second match and suddenly began to feel the table. And of course it's great for me that I could survive this round.''
Selim Özden, the day's best in Bursa
Sung Il Jeong was the second best
The top sixteen:
1 Selim Özden 4-1.666-5
2 Sung Il Jeong 4-1.500-10
3 Seung Jin Lee 4-1.333-7
4 Muharrem Peker 4-1.276-10
5 Furkan Senel 4-1.276-7
6 Sang Ku Kang 4-1.176-6
7 Jose Maria Mas 4-1.153-6
8 Salih Tekkeli 4-1.153-4
9 Savas Gungor 4-1.000-6
10 Tae Kwan Kim 4-0.923-7
11 Ümit Demircan 4-0.895-9
12 Turgay Orak 3-1.714-9
13 Duc Anh Chien Nguyen 2-1.718-11
14 Omer Karakurt 2-1.432-6
15 Volkan Cetin 2-1282-7
16 Ji Hun Ahn 2-1.177-6.
