LA BAULE - For the third year in a row, French billiard lover Joel Switala is hosting a World Cup three cushion tournament in the famous French seaside city of La Baule. The fifth World Cup on this year's UMB calendar starts today, Monday 22 October with 150 players, including all the best players in the world ranking. The place of action is the Sporting centre Salines. The Swede Torbjörn Blomdahl defends his title after defeating Frédéric Caudron 40-25 in 17 innings last year. The World Cup will be broadcast all days by Kozoom for Premium pass holders.
The ranking points of Porto's World Cup in 2017 were removed from the personal scores, which means among others that Korean HaengJik Kim will lose the maximum 80 points and also is facing the maximum loss in the next World Cup. Kim's top ten position, now third behind Frédéric Caudron and Dick Jaspers, is in danger. Caudron leads with a total of 426 points ahead of Jaspers with 380. In the 2018 World Cup ranking, Caudron is leading with 214 points after the World Cups in Antalya, Ho Chi Minh, Blankenberge and Porto, followed by Semih Saygıner with 114 points and Tayfun Tasdemir and Dick Jaspers with 104.
The fourteen ranked players for La Baule are Frédéric Caudron, Eddy Merckx, Haeng-Jik Kim, Marco Zanetti, Dick Jaspers, Jung Han Heo, Sung-Won Choi, Jae Ho Cho, Murat Naci Coklu, Torbjorn Blomdahl, Sameh Sidhom, Quyet Chien Tran, Dani Sánchez and Nguyen Quoc Nguyen. The three wildcards are awarded to Semih Sayginer (UMB), Jérémy Bury and Pierre Soumagne (organizing country). These 17 players will show up for the main tournament on Friday with 32 players, including 15 from the last qualifications on Thursday.
The players for the final qualification day include Robinson Morales, Hyung-Kon Kim, Adnan Yüksel, Can Capak, Birol Uymaz, Tonny Carlsen, Tayfun Tasdemir, Dinh Nai Ngo, Eddy Leppens, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Lütfi Cenet, David Martinez, Dong-Koong Kang, Minh Cam Ma, Myung-Woo Cho, Anh Vu Duong, Roland Forthomme and Javier Palazón.
The Dutch, Belgians, French and Germans will visit the tournament in great numbers. On Monday: Jef Philipoom, Adrien Tachoire, Wilco Meusen, Volkan Cetin, Peter Ceulemans, Marco Wolfs and Jordy de Kruyf will take action. On Tuesday, the well-known players from the lowlands are Ronny Brants, Raimond Burgman, Barry van Beers and Sylvia Eckel. Those who will also enter the arena are: Gwendal Maréchal, Antonio Montes, Jung-Ju Shin, Carlos Crespo, Murat Tüzül, Gökhan Salman and Ahmet Alp. And on Wednesday, the players to show up among others: Dion Nelin, Yusuke Mori, Filippos Kasidokostas, Therese Klompenhouwer, Glenn Hofman, Jérôme Barbeillon, Juan David Zapata, Jean Paul de Bruijn and Martin Horn.
The matches in the qualification rounds start at 11.00am on the first three days, then at 10 am for the last qualifications on Thursday, 12 am on Friday and 11 am on Saturday.