SEOUL - The final tournament of the PBA and LPBA, the Korean men's and women's professional competition, goes to the climax this weekend at the JTBC Studio in Ilsan in the latest and best-paid championship with a total prize money of 400 million Korean won. Sixteen players entered the knockouts today, Wednesday, with many big names still in both finals. Frédéric Caudron was best in the preliminary stage in average: 2.475 ahead of Young-hun Lee with 1.904 and Filippos Kasidokostas with 1.857. Spaniard Javier Palazon shone with the maximum 15 run. Mi-rae Lee was the best among the women with 1,138 ahead of Jin-ah Kim 1,085.
The top 16 players enter the stage today for the final rounds. Filippos Kasidokostas is the first to make it to the top eight with a 3-0 win over Joo sun Park. Frédéric Caudron meets in this round with the best 16 renowned Korean Jae ho Cho, David Zapata against Dong Koong Kang, David Martinez against Chan hyun Baek, Javier Palazon against Seong uk Oh and Eddy Leppens against Antonio Montes.
The men's tournament started this week with the 32 players qualified from this year's cycle. David Martinez, Frédéric Caudron, Eddy Leppens and Javier Palazon remained unbeaten in the four-player groups. Dong Koong Kang, David Zapata, Filippos Kasidokostas and Antonio Montes qualified with two wins.
Among the ladies, the best-known names in the top 16 are Sruong Pheavy, Orie Hida, Ga-young Kim, Bo-mi Kim, Natsumi Higashiuchi, Yi-eun Kim, Se-yeon Kim, Jung-suk Lim, Namiko Hayashi and Ayako Sakai. In the first day sessions, Orie Hida and Ga-young Kim have already made it to the top eight.
Frédéric Caudron defends the men's PBA title, Ga-young Kim in the women's.
David Zapata
Filippos Kasidokostas
Eddy Leppens
Ga-young Kim