VEGHEL - There is a tradition in the World Cups three cushion that the final day before the main draw turns into a battlefield with winners and losers. Twelve winners, of whom the Korean Jun-Tae Kim was the best, and three runners-up on this day will return in the spotlight with the world's best players starting tomorrow, Thursday, in a venue with crowded stands. The final session of the preliminaries was announced as a Danish evening, with four players in the arena from the country where the World championship three cushion will be played in a little more than four weeks. The total coup failed at the end of a wonerful day.
Three of these four Danes did not reach their high level in that final session against Antonio Montes, Duc Anh Chien Nguyen and Dinh Nai Ngo. Dion Nelin was even unrecognizable facing the Spanish ex-European Junior champion, Montes: 40-17 in 21. Brian Knudsen, one of the stars in the previous days, returns to the final field with the best 32 players on Thursday. Jacob Sörensen was one of three best runners-up after his loss with Sung-Won Choi and Jose-Maria Mas.
Jun-Tae Kim, an absolute rising star among the juniors with three podium places at a World championship was the number one on the ranking with 4 match points and 2,162 followed by Duc Anh Chien Nguyen with 4 points and 2,051 and Dani Sánchez with 4 points and 1,904. Young, 24-year Kim, outplayed Nikos Polychronopoulos, who's not in the 32 field in one of the last games, 40-30 in 23 innings.
Dani Sánchez and Gökhan Salman were the best winners in the last session in the upper half of the schedule on Wednesday. Salman's victory over Sung-Won Choi, a former world champion, was surprising with 40-30 in 22 (1,818). With an average of 1,750 and a run of 11, the Korean was among the best runners-up. Dani Sánchez made a promising start at his entry into the tournament with victories in 20 and 22 innings.
After his win against Wan-Young Choi in 21, Roland Forthomme played a solid match beating José-Maria Mas, one of the Spanish subtop players (40-28 in 21). The Belgian, a jovial person outside of billiards, who has almost as many fans in the Netherlands as in his own country, felt extremely happy after his matches. Lütfi Cenet had a lead of one and five caroms at the finish against Asians Chi Yeon Cho and Xuan Cuong Ma.
Jeffrey Jorissen was the only player from the home land who had chances to qualify in the final pre-rounds after his three memorable days with a final 16 run as the highlight. The Vietnamese Nguyen Quoc Nguyen ended his adventure: after Jorissen's come-back to 29-25, Nguyen had a better final sprint that was good for a 40-31 score in 25.
The Belgians, with Roland Forthomme in the main tournament, lost Peter Ceulemans due to his lost matches against Dani Sánchez (40-25 in 22) and Turk Manol Minaoglu (40-31 in 29). Jef Philipoom was allowed to come back slightly, but lost his two games with a wide margin: 40-32 in 26 against Muhammed Cavusoglu and 40-29 in 37 against an even far from great Myung-Woo Cho. Peter De Backer was eliminated by one of the Vietnamese players: Trung Hau Do Nguyen, who finished 40-20 in 16 innings.
The main roles for the Vietnamese, with four players in the top 12, were striking. The group winners in the last qualifications and the three best numbers two were:
1 Jun-Tae Kim (Korea) 4-2,162-12
2 Duc Anh Chien Nguyen (Vietnam) 4-2,051-5
3 Dani Sánchez (Spain) 4-1,904-8
4 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen (Vietnam) 4-1,777-14
5 Brian Knudsen (Denmark) 4-1,777-10
6 Roland Forthomme (Belgium) 4-1,739-7
7 Gökhan Salman (Turkey) 4-1,600-6
8 Lütfi Cenet (Turkey) 4-1,600-8
9 Antonio Montes (Spain) 4-1,568-13
10 Dinh Nai Ngo (Vietnam) 4-1,538-8
11 Myung-Woo Cho (Korea) 4-1,269-6
12 Trung Hau Do Nguyen 2-1,640-8
Runners-up:
1 Sung-Won Choi (Korea) 2-1,750-11
2 Jacob Sörensen (Denmark) 2-1,538-9
3 José-Maria Mas (Spain) 2-1,511-6.
The groups for Thursday on the first day of the main tournament (32 players in 8 groups of four, of which the first two in each group move up to the best 16):
Group A:
Dick Jaspers, Duc Anh Chien Nguyen, Ahmed Abdallah, José-Maria Mas
Group B:
Marco Zanetti, Jun-Tae Kim, Jean van Erp, Jacob Sörensen
Group C:
Tayfun Tasdemir, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Barry van Beers, Sung-Won Choi
Group D:
Semih Sayginer, Jung-Han Heo, Dani Sánchez, Trung Hau Do Nguyen
Group E:
Eddy Merckx, Martin Horn, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, Myung-Woo Cho
Group F:
Jae-Ho Cho, HaengJik Kim, Brian Knudsen, Dinh Nai Ngo
Group G:
Quyet Chien Tran, Jérémy Bury, Roland Forthomme, Antonio Montes
Group H:
Sameh Sidhom, Murat Naci Coklu, Gökhan Salman, Lütfi Cenet.
Brian Knudsen, three days on his very best, three days among the pre-round stars
Gökhan Salman, one of the best winners in the last session beating Sung-Won Choi, the former world champion
Dani Sánchez, a promising start with two solid wins
Roland Forthomme looked pretty happy among his Dutch fans
Spaniard Antonio Montes: great match and giant margin in his victory over Dion Nelin
One of the feared Nguyen's from Vietnam, Trung Hau Do, closed the 12 winners-row after beating Peter De Backer