3-Cushion
ANTALYA - The world's number one, Frédéric Caudron, will soon open the party in the Antalya World Cup against the only American, Hugo Patino. The arena is preparing for the opening ceremony, the first round starts at 12.00 Turkish time (11.00 in Europe). The starting field is very promising, not only with a Turkish and a Korean clash (Coklu-Capak, Kang-Kim), also in the last round of the day with the encounter between two greats: Sung-Won Choi and Semih Sayginer. UMB-president spoke shortly about the future of three cushion during the opening ceremony: ,,The next two years are very important for our sport. I want to ask for the support of the players, the organizers and our partner Kozoom.''
The run-up of Jae-Ho Cho, the Asian champion, was impressive on the last day of pre-rounds. The other Koreans are ready for the new test of strength with the European top guns. Nikos Polychronopoulos appears on the scene after the exodus of Greeks in the preliminaries. The Turk Muammer Rahmet, surrender of the pre-rounds, is the great surprise on the global stage. He's facing his baptism of fire in the main draw against a chastened champion, Dani Sánchez.
The Turks are with 8 in the final field, the Koreans with 7, the Vietnamese with 4, the Belgians with 3, the Dutch and Spaniards with 2, Germany, Italy, Greece, France, Egypt and America with one representative.
The great absentee is Torbjörn Blomdahl because of a recent surgery. The talented Korean Myung Woo Cho plays a tournament in his own country and is missing at this World Cup.
The program for today, Friday (all matches live on kozoom.com)
12.00 Turkish time
Caudron-Patino
Heo-Horn
Ngo-Tasdemir
Leppens-Sidhom
14.00:
Bury-Tran
Sánchez-Rahmet
Polychronopoulos-Duong
Zanetti-Bulut
16.00:
Jaspers-Cenet
Nguyen-HK Kim
HJ Kim-Yüksel
Cho-De Bruijn
18.00:
Coklu-Capak
Kang-JG Kim
Choi-Sayginer
Merckx-Palazón.
