3-Cushion
GURI - The 51-year-old Belgian Eddy Merckx has won his eleventh World Cup in a one-man show on the final day in Guri in Korea. In the final, he was by far the better of Frenchman Jérémy Bury with a generous score: 40-16 in 16 innings after a win in the semi-final over Korean local hero Jun-Tae Kim 40-21 in 17. Merckx rises to the world's number two position after his Guri victory in Guri, Dick Jaspers is topping the ranking. Merckx leads the 2019 World Cup ranking together with Tayfun Tasdemir with 188 points, followed by HaengJik Kim, Dick Jaspers and Lütfi Cenet. The Guri tournament ended with three Europeans and one Korean at the podium: Eddy Merckx, Jérémy Bury, Tayfun Tasdemir and Jun-Tae Kim.
The second to last World Cup in 2019 is followed by the last in Sharm el Sheikh. This year's cycle shows six different winners so far: Tasdemir, Caudron, Palazón, Jaspers, HJ Kim and Merckx. The final in the Korean stronghold was a magnificent demonstration of Merckx' supremacy. The Belgian ran away from Bury to 9-1 after eight innings, one inning later to 17-1, 21-6 at the break and after a decisive 12 run to 33- 7 in the 12th inning. The Frenchman made a little come-back, but was defenitely knocked out 40-16 in 16. The two players had met each other once before in a World Cup final: in 2016 in Luxor, where Merckx won 40-20 in 15.
The winner spoke to a Korean reporter after the final and showed his happiness to the cameras. "I like to play in Korea and I thank my Korean fans for the support," commented Merckx, who spent a few days with his sponsor Able in the run-up to the World Cup and gave exhibitions for friends there. ''This victory means that I gain very important points for the ranking. I am in second place now, which is encouraging for the new start next year. The final tournament is now decisive for the overall World Cup victory. That would give my year even more shine.''
At the end of this year, Merckx plays four more major tournaments: the Lausanne Open, the World Championship in Randers, the World Cup in Sharm el Sheikh and the Continental Cup in the final days of the year. ,,I have a lot of ranking points to lose, including 80 in Egypt, so I could have been in danger after a bad performance in Guri. That danger is over now. It has been a while since I was second on the ranking and I am realy proud that I can still lead the rankings with Dick Jaspers. I never expected that, let's say ten years ago, with all those young guys and Asians coming up."
,,That easy and smoothly as it went today, was unexpected of course. You can attack well, score a lot and defend well, but you never know how strong your opponents are. I was lucky that both Bury and Kim were not really threatening. And before the final day, I had no tough games, in fact, only against Martin Horn I had to be careful. So, I will be very happy when I step into the plane tonight, and I'm waiting for the next wonderful tournaments."
The final ranking in Guri:
1 Eddy Merckx (Belgium) 12-2,044-14
2 Jérémy Bury (France) 10-1,640-12
3 Tayfun Tasdemir (Turkey) 9-2,018-20
3 Jun-Tae Kim (Korea) 8-1,331-10
5 Quyet Chien Tran (Vietnam) 8-1,843-11
6 Dani Sánchez (Spain) 7-1,778-11
7 Sung-Won Choi (Korea) 6-1,560-10
8 Jung-Han Heo (Korea) 6-1,767-11
9 Jae-Ho Cho (Korea) 6-2,067-8
10 Nikos Polychronopoulos (Greece) 6-1,725-11
11 Murat Naci Coklu (Turkey) 6-1,666-8
12 Myung-Woo Cho (Korea) 5-1,591-8
13 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen (Vietnam) 4-1,860-11
14 Antonio Montes (Spain) 4-1,527-11
15 Lütfi Cenet (Turkey) 4-1,352-8
16 Jose Juan Garcia (Colombia) 3-1,746-10
17 Martin Horn (Germany) 4-1,800-10
18 Marco Zanetti (Italy) 2-2,087-8
19 Dick Jaspers (Netherlands) 2-1,875-12
20 Sameh Sidhom (Egypt) 2-1,684-12
Tournament average: 1,583. Best match: Dani Sánchez en Nguyen Quoc Nguyen (4,000 on average). Best run: Tayfun Tasdemir (20).
The new world ranking, the points and the last position:
1 - Dick Jaspers 518 (-)
2 - Eddy Merckx 332 (+3)
3 - Haeng-Jik Kim 280 (+1)
4 - Marco Zanetti 270 (-1)
5 - Jérémy Bury 262 (+5)
6 - Frédéric Caudron 258 (-4), geschorst
7 - Tayfun Tasdemir 257 (+1)
8 - Tran Quyet Chien 242 (+1)
9 - Semih Sayginer 229 (-3-
10 - Sameh Sidhom 222 (+1)
11 - Murat Naci Coklu 214 (+1)
12 - Jae-Ho Cho 206 (-5)
13 - Torbjörn Blomdahl 199 (+1)
14 - Myung-Woo Cho 193 (+2)
15 - Lütfi Cenet 191 (-)
16 - Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 189 (+1)
17 - Dani Sanchez 175 (+1)
18 - Jung-Han Heo 173 (+1)
19 - Sung-Won Choi 157 (+4)
20 - Roland Forthomme 151 (-)
21 - Eddy Leppens 135 (+1), geschorst
22 - Dion Nelin 134 (-1)
23 - Javier Palazon 134 (+2), geschorst
24 - Martin Horn 133 (-11)
25 - Ngo Dinh Nai 128 (-1)
26 - Nguyen Duc Ahn Chien 123 (+1)
27 - Pedro Gonzales 114 (+3)
28 - Erick Tellez 110 (+1)
29 - Filippos Kasidokostas 107 (-1), geschorst
30 - Nikos Polychronopoulos 102 (+5)
Semi-finals:
Jérémy Bury-Tayfun Tasdemir 40-20 in 15
The Korean crowd, around 400 spectators for this first semi-final, prepared for the next performance with the new young Kim. The warm-up, in which Tayfun Tasdemir was the favorite to win against Jérémy Bury because of his high runs in the previous days, showed how unpredictable three-cushion is at this high level. The Turkish stylist was knocked down by an opponent who took the initiative after 9-6 in five innings, ran to the break with 22-10 and attacked from the stop with 12 to 34-13. Tasdemir could never recover from the Bury's sledgehammer. He ended the match in style with three misses and saw Bury finish with 4. The first finalist, on his way to a jump in the rankings, showed like in his previous match against Sánchez the joy of the player who finally moved up to a fight for gold. He did it the last time at the World Cup in Cairo, more than a year ago, where he was defeated by Jaspers. Tayfun Tasdemir missed out his second final this year, in which he won the Antalya World Cup in his own country on 17 February.
Eddy Merckx-Jun-Tae Kim 40-21 in 17
The undisputed quality of Eddy Merckx, his mental power, was shown in one inning in this party. Jun-Tae Kim was 16-5 down after ten innings and floated on the applause of his fans to a run of seven (16-12). Merckx, unperturbed as ever, went to the table and answered with... seven, as if he wanted to show that nothing could keep him from winning. The triumphal march was unstoppable from then. Merckx ran out from 23-7 to 33-16 and after a six (39-21) one inning later to 40-21 in 17. The routine of the new number two in the world overpowered the upcoming talent, who climbs on 24 year of age for the first time on a World Cup stage. For the time being, still in the shadow of two purified Europeans.
