Specialists artistic compete for world title

FLORANGE - The Belgian world champion Eric Daelman heads the list of twenty players who compete for the world title artistic from 25 to 29 of May. The tournament will be held at the Cultural Center La Passerelle in Florange, France, hosted by the Florange Billard Club.

Eight players (two Belgians, two Frenchmen, two Dutch, one Japanese and one Spaniard) are qualified directly for the final round, the sixteen other players are divided into four groups of four and must qualify for the final round. After the preliminaries the numbers one and two of each group joint the eight seeded players.

Eric Daelman defends the title he won in the Turkish Kastamono two years ago before Haci Arap Yaman (Turkey), Walter Bax (Belgium) and Martin van Rhee (Netherlands). The tournament wasn't organized last year.

The wildcards of the French league were handed out to Jean Reverchon and Kevin Tran, of the CEB to Xavier Fonellosa and of the UMB to Michael Hammen.

The eight players who are seeded directly are:
Eric Daelman (Belgium), Hajime Watanabe (Japan), Sander Jonen (Netherlands), Martin van Rhee (Netherlands), Walter Bax (Belgium), Jean Reverchon (France), Xavier Fonellosa (Spain) and Michael Hammen (France).