3-Cushion
HURGHADA - He's only thirteen years, can play one average and is one of the many young talents in the Korean three-cushion. On the first days of the World Cup in Hurghada, Myung Woo Cho steals the show: he is a smart, little bit shy boy, who traveled to Hurghada with Kyung Hui Oh, the Korean lady who's a player herself too.
The little Asian boy started the preliminaries with victories against Ingrid Engelbrecht (2-0) and Guus van Grinsven (2-1) and moved up to the twelve players who seeded for the second round. In his group for today he will meet the Czech Jan Hudak and the Egyptian Hesham Gonaa.
Two other Koreans, Young Chull Kim and Dong Hoon Kim were also qualified for the next round, just like three Belgians, two Dutch, two Germans, one Italian, one Danish and one Czech. That's a total of thirteen players, one more than regulatory, but the German Edgar Bettzieche has been qualified as the first reserve, because one of the Vietnamese didn't arrive.
The tournament was running very smooth on the first day. The start was at ten o'clock in the morning, the finish of the last matches around half past ten. For the players who're on there way to Hurghada: the billiards are already 'quite short', as it is called in the jargon, the room is cozy and intimate, the temperature is pleasant, the situation outside extremely quiet and peaceful and no one has anything to complain.
Frans van Kuyk was seeded as the best player after day one with 1.538 averaged and a run of eleven, before Young Chull Kim with 1.016, Soren Andersen with 0.882, Marcel van Berkel 0.833 and Rudi Hendrickx 0.806. Monique van Hamond from the Netherlands played a remarkable qualifying round. She won the first, lost the second match and for her the party was over. But in her second match she made a run of eight, the best of the whole day after Frans van Kuyk.
Today, the quality of the matches will be better again. Wesley de Jaeger enters the tournament, Allan Jensen, Wilco van Wijk and Huub Wilkowski. The matches have started at 10.00.