HO CHI MINH – With Korean Myung Woo Cho on top of the rankings, the three-cushion World Cup cycle sets up camp in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. The start is this Monday, it is the tenth time that Ho Chi Minh is hosting a tournament. Previous winners included Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Merckx (both twice). The World Players ranking has undergone quite a few changes and now features Myung Woo Cho, Eddy Merckx and Martin Horn in top 3. Myung Woo Cho extended his lead with his victory in the Bogota World Cup. The Belgians live up to their status with three players in the top: Eddy Merckx (2nd), Frédéric Caudron (6th), and Peter Ceulemans (11th). The Koreans have only Myung Woo Cho and Jung Han Heo, the Turks Tayfun Tasdemir and Berkay Karakurt and the Vietnamese have Thanh Luc Tran and Quyet Chien Tran. For the Netherlands, Glenn Hofman has just dropped out of the top 14 following the previous tournament. Dick Jaspers, who led the rankings for many years, has dropped to 9th place due to a few minor tournaments.
The seeded players for the World Cup in Ho Chi Minh are Myung Woo Cho, Dick Jaspers, Eddy Merckx, Marco Zanetti, Tayfun Tasdemir, Quyet Chien Tran, Sameh Sidhom, Frédéric Caudron, Martin Horn, Berkay Karakurt, Thanh Luc Tran, Haeng Jik Kim, Jérémy Bury, and Peter Ceulemans. Wildcards have been awarded to Nguyen Van Tri, Nguyen Tran Thanh Tu and Mohamed Abdin.
The qualifiers start on Monday, May 18 at 11:00 Korean time; the time difference is five hours, so in Western Europe it is 6.00 AM. The first well-known players to enter the arena are Tatsuo Arai and Mauricio Aguilar. On Tuesday, former world champion Ryuuji Umeda will appear on the scene, along with Jose Maria Mas, Carlos Crespo, Takeshima O, Alessio D’Agata, Jose Juan Garcia, and David Pennör, among others. The qualifiers on Wednesday kick off with Tobias Bouerdick, Thanh Tien Le, Sam van Etten, Chang Hoon Seo, Pierre Soumagne, Wan Young Choi, Mikaël Devogelaere, Huberney Cataño, Maxime Panaia, Gwendal Maréchal and Dimitrios Seleventas. In the final qualifiers on Thursday, which start at 10:00 AM in Vietnam, players include Torbjörn Blomdahl, Phuong Vinh Bao, Glenn Hofman, Nick Polychronopooulos, Sergio Jimenez, Roland Forthomme, Ruben Legazpi, Hong Chiem Thai, Jung Han Heo, Myeong Jong Cha, Turgay Orak, and Jeffrey Jorissen.
The main draw starts with matches including Tasdemir-Kim, Merckx-Ceulemans, Zanetti-Bury, Tran-Tran, Caudron-Horn, and Sidhom-Karakurt.
Myung Woo Cho, the leader in the rankings
