HURGHADA - Who will win the World Cup in Hurghada and who will be the world's number one for the upcoming months? Torbjörn Blomdahl saw two of his major competitors, Sung-Won Choi and Frédéric Caudron, lose their matches in the early hours of the second match day. He calculated: ,,I still have to win this World Cup to stay on top of the ranking.
The reality, however, is that the Swede was outclassed one round later. Tayfun Tasdemir, last year's losing finalist against Eddy Merckx, defeated the world's number one since the World championship in Seoul and lost it to Eddy Merckx.
The Swede was always speculating even just before his major match against Tasdemir for the second day session, especially now that the system of ranking points is changing radically on January 1 of 2015. The former system was that eight previous World Cups were counted for the ranking points per player. The new rules change it into six World Cups.
The calculations tell that (without the World Cup in Hurghada points), Sung-Won Choi presumably would be the new leader ahead of Eddy Merckx, Frédéric Caudron, Blomdahl and Dick Jaspers. But now that Merckx' four pursuers are out of the Hurghada World Cup, the Belgian is the new world's leader for the first time in his career. ,,I don't know if it will be for a very short time, because I have to defend my Belgian title, but anyway, it's a reward for a great year.
The virtual ranking (without Hurghada) further provides that Filipos Kasidokostas drops to the 18th position and Jérémy Bury, this year still in top twelve, even to the 21th place.
Sung-Won Choi was eliminated in Hurghada in a match in which he was knocked down by Eddy Leppens (40-24 in 22). And Frédéric Caudron was outsprinted as well without too many chances against Javier Palazón (40-24 in 12).
Tayfun Tasdemir wasted three match points to finish with his winning carom against Torbjörn Blomdahl. Eddy Merckx and Dani Sánchez matched up until halfway. The Belgian then attacked very strong with runs of eight and eleven to the finish.
The fight between Korean Kyung-Roul Kim and Hyung Bum Hwang marked the downfall of another top twelve player. The veteran Kim Kyung-Roul couldn't keep up at all with his 31-year old opponent, who seems to be one of the new stars in the Korean sky. Hwang defeated Kasidokostas the day before in fifteen innings, now he left his illustrious compatriot far behind: 40-19 also in fifteen innings.
Javier Palazón, who impressed against Caudron, looks back from a few minor years. The 26 year old Spaniard from Paiporta, who was a three times junior world champion and twice on the stage of a World championship after his move to the seniors, said after his victory against Caudron that he spent several months working in a supermarket.
He has a girlfriend, Veronica, with whom he lives together and who's supporting him very much. ,,But because it was harder to win in billiards with all the strong Koreans and other players in the world, I was looking for work. So, I worked in a supermarket from April until October. Then I stopped. I want to play billiards again, with a lot of training and live as a professional player.''
The Spaniard showed it in today's match against Caudron after he was not unlucky in his first against Jae Guen Kim (40-39). The Belgian star started with a run of eight from the break, but from then the Spaniard dominated the match (17-11 after a run of nine in six innings), 28-13, 37-24, after a few small runs of Caudron and finally, after a lucky shot, with three to the finish (40-24 in 12).
Dong Koong Kang made in that round an end to the Emrullah Basegmez' wonderful adventure (40-19 in 17) and Adnan Yüksel won the Turkish battle against Murat Naci Coklu 40-36 in 18. Marco Zanetti recorded a solid win against Roland Forthomme (40-30 in 20).
The main conclusion after that round: the new world champion was sent home after his loss to Eddy Leppens, who's not among the top twelve and came out of the qualifying rounds, where Leppens played 2.500 average.
,,My only concern against Choi was that I would not lose my head'', said Leppens. ,,I even was amazed when I looked at the score and saw that my advance was so big. But Choi played poorly, I was never in trouble. Actually, I made a some serious mistakes, I could finish a few innings before.