LUXOR - The venue of the World Cup in Luxor slowly emptied after the world's best was beaten in his first appearance. Torbjörn Blomdahl had a pretty poor start and was finally punished by Lütfi Cenet (40-28 in 25). The still untouchable number one in the world is out of the tournament and doesn't play for the main prize, like in this year's first World Cup in Bursa.
The Swede can afford a misstep with his position on the ranking: he is leading with 440 points, followed by Dani Sánchez 311, Dick Jaspers 299, Frédéric Caudron 282 and Eddy Merckx 279. The thing to know is that Blomdahl will lose the 80 points in Luxor that he took with his victory in Porto last year.
The match in which Blomdahl was knocked down, showed Cenet going with the flow at the start. The Turk ran out from the tenth inning with runs of 10, 8 and 5, good for a 25-12 lead. The only revival was Blomdahl's run of eight in the 13th inning, but it was not good enough, because Cenet, after a slight setback, attacked to 37-28 and grabbed the victory after his opponent missed a simple three cushion shot and offered the last caroms to Cenet.
At the other tables in the first session, two Koreans and one Turk were in high spirits. Tayfun Tasdemir played a decent match against Xuan Cuong Ma, which he dominated from the seventh (12-11) and triumphed 40-26 in 23 innings.
Hyung Bum Hwang, yesterday topping the days' ranking, suddenly had lost his hope and confidence. The match vs Chi-Yeon Cho was decided around the fifteenth turn (27-15), because Hwang couldn't find the rhythm to repair: 40-24 in 21.
Jae Ho Cho made the best impression in this first session. The best Korean on the ranking (tenth) faced the Egyptian champion Riad Nady and showed how the rates are: 40-19 in 21.
The players for the main tournament in Luxor
UMB president Farouk Barki (middle) during the official opening ceremony
The next session at 14.00:
Tran-Tüzül
Zanetti-Alp
Kim-De Bruijn
Merckx-Do Nguyen.
Torbjörn Blomdahl and Lütfi Cenet before the start of their match
The Korean Jae Ho Cho was the best winner in the first session of the day