3-Cushion
SUWON - Three average for the first appearance of Seo Hyun Min in the World Cup in Suwon, Hae Myung Jung who started up with an imposing 2.500, Kyung-Nam Ko showed the audience a wonderful 2.307 and Young and Young II Kwun and Jung Suk Park who shared themselves among the big players of the first session with 1.578: the second day of the World Cup in Suwon was characterized by an impressive start. It promises a lot for what will be seen later in the second qualifying round.
Min Seo Hyun dashed off his first match against Joong Young Ahn very quickly in the early morning hours. He just needed ten innings (two times five) for the fifteen poings with a run of eleven as the highest. He left his opponent behind with thirteen caroms, still good for 1.444 average.
Hae Myoung Jung didn't play much less in his first match of the tournament against Jin Sam Kim. The match had been finished in just one hour with two times fifteen in six innings.
Kyung-Nam Ko had a pretty fast start with 15 in three innings against Jeong Wan Lim, who was left at only one point. In the second set Ko reached the finish in ten innings (2.307). He was the third player in the first session with over two average.
The Koreans, who are outnumbered in the field with 104 players, have already showed how strong they are mainly in the width in the first days of this World Cup. The country has, according to the national rankings, more than two hundred players who can play over 1.000 average, ten of them even more than 1.500.
HaengJik Kim, who will come later into the tournament, is with two world titles as a junior by far the best talent. His successor must be TaeJun Oh, the second young player in the country, whoms average hasn't come further than 0.850 until now.
The training and coach in Korea is not centrally concentrated, but the facilities are very good. Young players often develop in the big number of billiard clubs, where top players work as a manager. That's why especially Seoul with his many clubs has become a bastion of three-cushion in the world.
On the second day, the foreign players were all surprised by the heat and humidity, which is not so appealing to go out on the streets. The Belgian Roland Forthomme has been domesticated already, but is a little concerned about his cue, which didn't arrive at the airport in Suwon,.
But anyway, everything is allright for the players, who are provided pretty well. ,,We have a coffee and eat some sandwiches at Paris Baguette,'' one of the Europeans told us. ,,And in the hotel room we have a TV which is bigger than our bed.'' So life is good in Suwon and billiard is brilliant.