VILA NOVA DE GAIA – ,,Yes, of course it's still a special match'', said Jérémy Bury, having just beaten his countryman Jérôme Barbeillon in the first round (40-21 in 23 innings). ,,We are friends, we were European Champions together, we travelled to Porto together. And the we meet in the first round of the WC. That is extraordinary.''
Jérémy Bury, who made the difference with a run of 13, was the first top 10 player to enter the arena, as he had a countryman in his flight and they needed to play each other first in order to prevent foul play. Luis Aveiga from Ecuador is the third player in that flight.
Even before the top 4 players were in action in the 19.00 round (Dick Jaspers, Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl and Dani Sánchez), the first rounds had their consequences for what will follow. The victories of Colombian Heriberto Aristazabal and Venezuelan Romero promise nice and tense outcomes for these groups.
Jérémy Bury now only needs to beat Aveiga, Nikos Polychronopoules, who is yet to play Marco Zanetti, had a slow start against Quoc Nguyen Nguyen. Even more so, did Adnan Yüksel against Miguel Canton of Venezuela.
The Greek won his match 40-31 in 33 innings. Yüksel saw his opponent finish, congratulated him, but apparently had forgotten that this WC is played with equal innings. From the starting points he made his remaining caroms, to draw. That flight (with Eddy Merckx) can also see a tight and exciting finish.
The third Belgian on the world ranking list (after Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Merckx, had no mercy with Germany’s Markus Dömer. Leppens scored 40-14 in 25, which made him one of the better winners in this first round of play.
Jorge Alipio went neck and neck with Korean Dong Koong Kang for a long time, and Ryuuji Umeda could only in the second half distance himself from the young Portugese Joao Ferreira, who saw the wheels come off when he was on 15, consequently losing 40 – 17 in 27 innings.