3-Cushion
GURI - The new generation in three cushion has strongly announced itself and is on its way to a further levelling in the World Cups cycle. The field of leading players and champions is growing to a higher level, but is no longer ensured to gain podium places and main prizes. Myung-Woo Cho, Antonio Montes, Jose Juan Garcia and Jun-Tae Kim are exponents of the new top talents. Dick Jaspers, Marco Zanetti, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Semih Sayginer, Martin Horn and the previous World Cup winner, HaengJik Kim, were missing out in their run-up to the best sixteen for the knock-out, despite the high expectations and excellent averages in the Guri World Cup. The new era is coming, the older guard is far from giving up yet.
HaengJik Kim, Lütfi Cenet, Antonio Montes and Duc Anh Chien Nguyen already stormed to the stage in the previous World Cup in Veghel giving the event a metamorphosis. The Korean stronghold in Guri is also the podium for new faces in the sport that showed the same winners for many years. That is surely a nice development, giving three cushion a new dimension. The known champions who did survive in Guri on the first day of the main draw were Dani Sánchez, Eddy Merckx, Jae-Ho Cho, Murat Naci Coklu, Quyet Chien Tran, Tayfun Tasdemir, Sung-Won Choi and Jérémy Bury.
Most striking was Dick Jaspers' start with two losses, Marco Zanetti with two draws and one loss and Torbjörn Blomdahl with two losses in three games. Zanetti was one of the players with an average over two, Dani Sánchez and Tayfun Tasdemir, numbers one and two in their flight, were high-flyers with averages of 2,264 and 2,222, Jae-Ho Cho with 2,181, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen with 2,070 and Jose Juan Garcia with 2.017.
The players with the maximum three wins were Jae-Ho Cho (6, 2,181-8), Quyet Chien Tran (6-1,967-11), Nikos Polychronopoulos (6-1,690-9) and Murat Naci Coklu (6-1,690-8) ). The other group winners were Dani Sánchez (5-2,264-7), Myung-Woo Cho (5-1,643-8), Nguyen Quoc Nguyen (4-2,070-9) and Antonio Montes (4-1,787-11) The numbers two in the groups to move up to the best sixteen: Tayfun Tasdemir, Eddy Merckx, Sung-Won Choi, Lütfi Cenet, Jérémy Bury, Jun-Tae Kim, Jose Juan Garcia and Jung-Han Heo.
Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, in his comeback after a short slump, closed the group stage with a brilliant win over Martin Horn 40-10 in 10 innings. The Vietnamese whirlwind started his performance with a 23-2 in four and got no opposition in the second part. Eddy Merckx, who lost to Horn in this group, had one of his typical outliers: after a start with 3-9-0-14 against Jäschke and a 26-5 in 4 innings, the Belgian only finished after 20 innings after three caroms in his last nine innings.
Dick Jaspers started his cavalry run with a loss to Antonio Montes (40-33 in 15) and then lost to Lütfi Cenet (40-32 in 22). Montes and Cenet decided that Group A with 4 match points. Marco Zanetti was unluckily eliminated in Group B by two draws against Myung Woo Cho and Garcia, the two players who qualified with 5 and 3 match points. Dani Sánchez and Tayfun Tasdemir played a draw in their clash in Group C and then were the better of Blomdahl and Hong. In Group D, Nikos Polychronopoulos remained unbeaten against Heo (number 2), Mori and Sayginer.
Nguyen Quoc Nguyen and Eddy Merckx competed for the leading positions in Group E, where the Germans Horn and Jäschke were eliminated. Jae-Ho Cho dominated in Group F and took Jun-Tae Kim with him to the best sixteen. Quyet Chien Tran and Jérémy Bury kept Dion Nelin out of the final rounds in Group G (Tran-Nelin 40-39) and Murat Naci Coklu, among the three best Turks again, gained the maximum points against Sung-Won Choi, Sidhom and the third Nguyen from the Vietnamese stable.
The sixteen-field: 5 Koreans, 3 Turks, 2 Vietnamese, 2 Spaniards, 1 Belgium, 1 Colombian, 1 Greek, 1 French.
The matches in the last sixteen, Saturday:
14.00 (Western Europe 6.00):
Jae-Ho Cho-Jung Han Heo
Antonio Montes-Tayfun Tasdemir
Dani Sánchez-Lütfi Cenet
Murat Naci Coklu-Jérémy Bury
16.00 (Western Europe 8.00):
Nikos Polychronopoulos-Jun-Tae Kim
Myung-Woo Cho-Sung-Won Choi
Nguyen Quoc Nguyen-Eddy Merckx
Quyet Chien Tran-Jose Juan Garcia
Jae-Ho Cho, the best winner in the entire 32-field
Antonio Montes, exponent in the new generation
Murat Naci Coklu, an excellent performance and among the three Turks in the finals
Nikos Polychronopoulos, winner in the group with Heo, Mori and Sayginer
Eddy Merckx, two wins, one loss to move up to the final sixteen
Lütfi Cenet, final in Veghel, with two Turks in the last sixteen
Jérémy Bury on his way to the final rounds
Myung-Woo Cho, the junior world champion, one of the big talents in current three cushion
Jun-Tae Kim, on his way up in the last World Cups
Juan Jose Garcia in his match with Marco Zanetti