PORTO – Turkish player Gökhan Salman, who has never scored highly in World Cups during his career, is the sensation of the World Cup in Porto. On the day leading up to the finals, Salman first defeated his compatriot Berkay Karakurt 50-43 in 29 innings in the last sixteen, and then fort he quarter finals Frédéric Caudron 50-44 in 28. The other players for the semi-finals in Porto on Sunday are Myung Woo Cho, Marco Zanetti and Jérémy Bury. The semi-finals are Bury-Zanetti and Cho-Salman.
Most notably was that the two Belgian favorites were eliminated in the quarter-finals. Caudron and Merckx were expected to compete for the podium places, but Merckx, who was in his best form for two days with high averages and runs, had the best chances against Myung Woo Cho, the world champion, but due to a sudden attack with 15, Cho ultimately took the win: 50-47 in 27 innings. Jérémy Bury knocked out the first Spaniard, Sergio Jimenez, from the World Cup with 50-22 in 21/20. Zanetti defeated Ruben Legazpi, the star of the previous rounds.
Belgian Frédéric Caudron was the tormentor of the Dutch in the round of 16. Both Dick Jaspers on Thursday and Glenn Hofman on Friday had to capitulate to Caudron, who seemed to be on a mission in the World Cup and wants to regain his former status in the UMB circuit. On the first day of the knock-outs, Friday afternoon also saw the Belgian clash between Eddy Merckx and Peter Ceulemans. Merckx won 50-46 in 35.
On Friday morning, sixteen players remained in contention for the World Cup title: three Belgians, three Turks, three Koreans, two Spaniards, one Dutchman, one Italian, one Vietnamese, one Greek and one Frenchman. In any case, the Belgians already had two players through to the last eight. Caudron started with a run of 12 against Hofman and immediately opened up a gap that the Dutchman was unable to close despite a good run of 9. Caudron missed three match points at the end of the game, allowing Hofman to close the gap to 10 points. The final score was 50-40 in 20.
The little guy Merckx had the tall guy Ceulemans in an iron grip for a long time. At a score of 42-33, Ceulemans broke away with a run of 12: he took the lead with 45-42, but in the final innings, Merckx was the cool finisher when he reached the end with 5. Glenn Hofman said goodbye to Porto after four wins and three losses, the latter of which in the knockout against Caudron meant elimination. Thanks to his place in the top 8, Caudron is almost certain to rise to the top 14 in the world rankings. Hofman, who is 19th and in good form to climb the rankings, loses many ranking points from the World Cup in Bogota and drops a few places. Despite his loss to Merckx, Peter Ceulemans will in any case overtake Hofman.
Eddy Merckx, who is in third place, can overtake Quyet Chien Tran, but Myung Woo Cho can also take second place behind Dick Jaspers. Despite his early elimination, the Dutchman is still unchallenged at the top.
Gökhan Salman won the Turkish clash with Berkay Karakurt in that round with 16, 50-43 in 29, and will finish so high in a World Cup for the first time in his career. The Turkish outsider usually finished between 30th and 70th place in many World Cups and is enjoying the best days of his career so far.
The second session in the round of 16 was above all a highlight of high averages. In the four matches, three players finished over 3 on average, with one even achieving this in a single match. Jérémy Bury defeated Haeng Jik Kim 50-44, averages 3.333 and 3.143. The Spaniard Ruben Legazpi was even better in his match against Nick Polychronopoulos: 50-27 in 13, 3.846 average with series of 12 and 10.
That was also the round in which two Spaniards qualified for the top 8 of this World Cup. Sergio Jimenez eliminated the last Vietnamese player, Van Ly Dao, with 50-40 in 33.
Jérémy Bury and Haeng Jik played an extremely interesting match. The Frenchman had a miraculous start with 7, 9 and 10 in the first 9 innings and went to a margin 38-17. The Korean had a strong phase in the second part with runs of 4, 6, 8 and 7. Bury felt the threat for a moment, but was able to finish with a harmonica that was on to the millimetre.