Nobody wants to miss Hurghada's World Cup paradise

HURGHADA - The World Cup in Hurghada (Egypt), which is on the calendar from 7 to 13 December, is fully booked again, already one month before the closure of the inscriptions. In addition to the 144 places which are available for the qualifications and the main event, already 38 reserve players are on the list. The tournament on the borders of the Red Sea, is for many players in demand as a combination of billiards and holidays and proves its popularity as never before.

The top twelve players, with Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Eddy Merckx, Dick Jaspers and Filipos Kasidokostas as the best five, have already confirmed. Thirty places are reserved for players from the places 13 to 64 on the world rankings and 25 for players from the Asian confederation.

Eddy Merckx, who won the World Cup in Korea last week, is the defending champion in Hurghada. He defeated Tayfun Tasdemir in the final last year.

The 'victims' of the overwhelming interest are not only Peter De Backer, Ivo Gazdos, Radek Novak and Young Chull Kim, but also a lot of young talents, as the French world champion Adrien Tachoire, the Spaniards Juan David Zapata, David Martinez (who was in the main event in Porto), Antonio Montes and Korean Myung Woo Cho, finalist at the last Junior World championships in Sluiskil.

Juan David Zapata is very disappointed and wrote on his facebook site, showing the list of players: ,,The picture says more than a thousand words.''

Adrien Tachoire: ,,I wouldn't have played, probably, because it's impossible with my work. But I would like to play the World Cup in Luxor.''

The first of five wildcards has been distributed by the European federation to Jérémy Bury.

Frédéric Caudron, the numer one on the players list and Jérémy Bury, who received a wildcard from the CEB.

The most known players (after the top twelve) on the provisional list:

Semih Sayginer, Therese Klompenhouwer, Roland Forthomme, Murat Naci Coklu, Cenet, Glenn Hoffman, Murat Tüzül, Ahmet Alp, Adnan Yüksel, Jean Paul de Bruijn, Jef Philipoom, Christian Rudolph, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Peter Ceulemans, Arnim Kahofer, Eddy Leppens Jose Juan Garcia, Choong-Bok Lee, Jung Han Heo, Hyung Bum Hwang, Jae Guen Kim, Jin Pyo Hong, Francis Forton, Jean Reverchon and Pierre Soumagne.

The Vietnamese players are the notable absentees so far, but may still register if they belong to the top 64.