SHARM EL SHEIKH - The resort hosting this year's final World Cup in Sharm El Sheikh is bathed in lush sunshine. The first guests have already arrived in the days beforehand, the Park Regency in Garden Bay exudes a certain calm until the Saturday of kick-off. The seventh 2024 World Cup will come to the showdown of the cycle in which Dick Jaspers and Quyet Chien Tran both won two tournaments. Dick Jaspers did so in Porto and Seoul, Quyet Chien Tran in Bogota and Veghel. The two world class players are exactly equal in ranking points on the World Cup cycle rankings: 248. That makes them the only contenders for the €30,000 top prize, as Tayfun Tasdemir, Jung Han Heo and Sameh Sidhom, who complete the top five, cannot overtake Jaspers and Tran. The better of the two frontrunners therefore claims the 2024 World Cup victory in Sharm El Sheikh.
With 31 World Cup victories, 59-year-old Dick Jaspers has a much richer palmares than 40-year-old Quyet Chien Tran, who has climbed to the world top in recent years and won his 4th World Cup in Veghel last month. Jaspers won his 30th and 31st World Cup this year, the first in Porto before Myung Woo Cho, the second in Seoul before Tayfun Tasdemir. The World Cup ranking has gone through five editions since 2017 and was won four times by Jaspers. In three of those four years, the Dutchman won two tournaments, only in 2018 did Frédéric Caudron win the ranking ahead of Jaspers.
Most striking in the 2024 rankings over six tournaments are the high positions of the Koreans with three players in the top 12. The Vietnamese are with two players, Tayfun Tasdemir and Tolgahan Kiraz are in the top eight for Turkey. Eddy Merckx, a regular World Cup winner, is now 12th still without a win this year. Peter Ceulemans is an excellent climber for the Belgians on 16, the same as Glenn Hofman for the Dutch on 18. Two big winners over the years, Marco Zanetti and Torbjörn Blomdahl are in positions 17 and 21. The Swede and the Italian are also vulnerable in the player rankings: 12 and 14. Torbjörn Blomdahl (total 46 World Cup wins) won his last World Cup in 2023 in Ho Chi Minh, Marco Zanetti (total 4 World Cups) in 2019 in Sharm El Sheikh.
The World Cup cycle concludes in Sharm El Sheikh after wins this year for Dick Jaspers (2), Quyet Chien Tran (2), Duc Minh Tran in Ho Chi Minh and Jung Han Heo in Ankara. If Jaspers or Tran win in Sharm, one of them takes his third World Cup in one year. That’s not even a record. Dick Jasspers won four World Cups in 2008: Matosinhos, Irapuato, Suwon and Alcala de Guadaira.
The seeded players for the World Cup in Sharm El Sheikh are Dick Jaspers, Myung Woo Cho, Quyet Chien Tran, Eddy Merckx, Jun Tae Kim, Martin Horn, Jung Han Heo, Sameh Sidhom, Tayfun Tasdemir, Marco Zanetti, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Haeng Jik Kim, Tolgahan Kiraz and Thanh Luc Tran. Wildcards were handed out to Javier Vera (Mexico) and for the home country Samer Kamal and Mahmoud Ayman.
The total of Turkish players is 29, with 13 Turks also high on the reserve list. The Netherlands follows with 16, Egypt with 12, Korea with 11 and Vietnam with 10. The Belgians have six players in the field of participants. For the first time, three players from Saudi Arabia are playing a World Cup: Alshammari, Altolaibi and Alharbi.
For the Netherlands, Henk Overmars will open the World Cup on Sunday 1 December at 11.00 (10.00 in Western Europe) against Italian Giuseppe Tiranno. Playing for Belgium on that first day will be Jef Philipoom and his son Luca Philipoom who will play for the Netherlands. Patrice Lalanne, organizer of the Women's and Junior World championship this year, will also be in action.
Day 2 will see Mikaël Degvogelaere, Birol Uymaz, Denizcan Akkoca, Karina Jetten, Seymen Ozbas, Adrie Tachoire, Ronny Lindemann and Than Tien Le, among others, come to the tables.
The penultimate qualifying day on Tuesday includes Sergio Jimenez, Dimitrios Seleventas, Kostas Kokkoris, Turgay Orak, Pierre Soumagne, Gwendal Maréchal, Ja In Kang and TTT Nguyen. Playing in the final qualifiers on Wednesday include Berkay Karakurt, Frédéric Caudron, Nick Polychronopoulos, Glenn Hofman, Duc Minh Tran, Hong Chiem Thai, Peter Ceulemans, Ruben Legazpi, Chang Hoon Seo, Jean Paul de Bruijn, Phuong Vinh Bao, Jérémy Bury, Sam van Etten, Jeffrey Jorissen, Gökhan Salman and Omer Karakurt.
The main tournament starts on Thursday, 5 December, including group matches between Quyet Chien Tran and Thanh Luc Tran, Eddy Merckx and Tolgahan Kiraz, Jun Tae Kim and Haeng Jik Kim, Martin Horn and Torbjörn Blomdahl, Jung Han Heo and Marco Zanetti and Sameh Sidhom against Tayfun Tasdemir.
The round of 16 finalists is on 6 December, followed by the quarter-finals that day. The semi-finals are Saturday 7 December at 10am and 12.30pm, with the final at 4pm. The time in Sharm El Sheikh is 1 hour later than in Western Europe.
The matches will be broadcast live all days by Soop.