3-Cushion
URI - Full house in the billiard room, a frenzied atmosphere and two brilliant finalists in the World Cup final between Dani Sánchez from Spain and Dong Koong Kang from Korea. World class (three world titles) against Korean high class player.
The big favorite? Dani Sánchez, most of all after his sublime semifinal against Jérémy Bury, another star player in the tournament, whom he beat 40-17 in 10 innings.
The winner? Dong Koong Kang, who played an incredibly wonderful final match in front of his home crowd (40-28 in 12 innings) and now may carry the title 'King Kang' in his country.
The best man of the tournament, who never won a World Cup event before, is usually the epitome of a dispassionate Asian. After his last carom against Dani Sánchez, he jumped wildly in the air, waved with his cue, cried out his joy and then went along the row of neatly invited people to share in his celebration.
Beautiful scene there, in the Korean court.
Dong Koong Kang (32 ) defeated three former world champions on his way to the final: Ryuuji Umeda (40-38 in 30), Torbjörn Blomdahl (40-30 in 12) and Dani Sánchez. He won two other matches against Tatsuo Arai (40-16 in 15) and Dinh Nai Ngo in the semifinals (40-26 in 31).
He set the tone in the final with runs of of 10 (second inning) and 8 (seventh inning) and finished with a glorious seven in the twelfth inning. The Korean dominated the entire match with intermediate scores of 11-2, 22-11, 30-12 and 31-18.
Dani Sánchez, who only was nearby his opponent with 33-25 after a small run of seven, started the the equalizer with an almost unbridgeable gap (40-25). He scored, after a fierce shout from the audience, which made him smile, three times in the break-off.
What do we know about Dong Koong Kang, the most introverted of the famous Korean players?
He is part of the ’Golden Five’ of his country, is married to Su Ah Park, a rising star in the women's billiards (third in the New York tournament this year), was 21th on the world ranking before the final with 137 points, which he deserved with eighth finals in the World Cups of Matosinhos, Vienna and Antalya.
With his World Cup victory in Guri, Kang is coming up, according to the initial calculations, to the top ten in the world.
The last image of the day: the winner, seized with emotion, who received the trophy, devoutly closed his eyes during the national anthem and then, in a speech, thanked everyone, especially his wife Su Ah, who made a deep bow to the public from the stands.
Semifinals :
Dani Sánchez had his moment of glory in his match against Jérémy Bury. The Spanish cue artist, Pepito for his friends, made a furious start with ten in the second inning (23-4 after four innings), ran out to 26-13 and then rolled over his opponent with a 13 run in the 9th inning, with which he stranded on one carom from the finish (39-17).
With his last point, Sánchez recorded the best match of the tournament: ten innings, 4.000 average.
Dong Koong Kang and Dinh Nai Ngo stepped on to the finish in a more modest match, decided after 31 innings. The Korean had a comfortable lead at the end (40-26) and thus outsprinted the revelation of the tournament .
Final match: Kang-Sánchez:
Score after two innings: 11-2
5 innings: 14-11
7 innings: 22-11
10 innings: 31-18
11 innings: 33-25
12 innings: 40-28 .
Average Kang: 3.333
Average Sánchez: 2.333
High run Kang: 10
High run Sánchez: 7.
The top ten with averages:
1 Kang, 2.000
2 Blomdahl, 2.000
3 Bury, 1.756
4 Ngo, 1.623
5 Caudron, 1.791
6 Jaspers, 1.741
7 Cho, 1.677
8 Arai, 1.352
9 Zanetti, 2.054
10 Coklu, 1.813.
Dani Sánchez played the best match in ten innings (4.000).
Jérémy Bury made the highest run: 24.
The provisional new world ranking:
1 Blomdahl 402
2 Caudron 371
3 Bury 352
4 Zanetti 319
5 Choi 303
6 Merckx 290
7 Jaspers 283
8 Sánchez 270
9 Kim 264
10 Kang 209
11 Cenet 205
12 Coklu 201
13 Kasidokostas 200
14 Cho 194
15 Yüksel 183
16 Horn 174
17 Tasdemir 165
18 Lee 156
19 Sidhom 143
20 Forthomme 132