PELOPONNESSOS – And one more jumped out of the hat… Rarely heard from in the recent past, fairly unknown Korean, appears to be a modest youngster. Can he play billiards? In front of an expert crowd of mostly billiard players, a superb match unfolded.
And we have not even completed the prequalifications yet.
27-year old Korean Jin Pyo Hong stole the show in the first (deciding) round of the evening session. In another flight, Jérome Barbeillon had his second draw, but doing so he was eliminated by Mehmet Goren. Peter Ceulemans advanced, having beaten Jose Maria Mas and Dave Christiani bested a relatively unknown Turk to qualify.
But who is this Jin Pyo Hong, star player of the day out of nowhere? We hardly know him from World Cups, do we? He lives in Dae Djeon, is single, and has made it to the main draw of a World Cup just once.
He may not be amongst the well known Korean elite, his country’s ranking places him 12th. Nevertheless, in Peloponnesos he was the sensation of the evening: having had a laborsome win in his first match over countryman Chi Yeon Cho (30-29 in 32), he found inspiration in his second match. Hong was ahead 19-14 in 7 innings against Can Capak, and ended the match with a fluent run of 11. It was – so far – the best match in the qualification stage.
Mehmet Goren won his first match in flight A, beating Dionisis Tsokantas, whereas Jérôme Barbeillon and the Greek were undecided: 30-30 in 26. The decision had to come in the third match, which again ended in a draw: the unfortunate Barbeillon was eliminated without having lost a match. Goren, who was over the moon, will advance a round. ,,I was locked in when I made the last point.’’ Jérôme Barbeillon made the equalizing point to no avail.
Barry van Beers had a lightning start in his match against seasoned Frenchman Reverchon. After five innings, the Dutchmen had a 18-0 lead, and he was never in trouble from there: 30-18 in 21.
Michael Nilsson won his second match against Vinh Ly The, which brought three players on 2 match points in that flight. The Vietnamese player advanced, ahead of Chatzipavlis en Nilsson.
Jin Pyo Hong topped the charts with 1.500 gemiddeld, Hyun-Suk Kim second also with 1.500 ahead of Dinh Nai Ngo, Hyung Bum Hwang and Dave Christiani, all with 1.395.
Hong and Ngo shone with runs of eleven.
In the sixteen advancing players we find five Koreans, three Vietnamese, two Dutchmen, a Belgian, an Austrian, a Greek, an Egyptian, a Turk and a Frenchman.
Sixteen flights of three players will start tomorrow (thursday) in the final qualification, playing to 40 points. The battle for a place in the main draw will no doubt be fierce.
The most interesting flights?
Poule A with Hyong Bum Hwang, Dave Christiani and Murat Naci Coklu
Poule C with Hyun-Suk Kim, Peter Ceulemans and Tayfun Tasdemir
Poule D with Choong Bok Lee, Jin Pyo Hong and Barry van Beers.
Poule H with Raimond Burgman Nikos Polychronopoulos and Khaled Salem
Poule K with Xuan Cuong Ma, Vinh Ly The and Savas Bulut.
Poule L with Glenn Hofman, Young Chull Kim and Javier Palazón.