HO CHI MINH CITY - The World Cup in Ho Chi Minh City made the start that we all could expect. With 22 Vietnamese and 19 Koreans around and at the eight match tables, the opening day was most of all an Asian party. Sung Won Jang was the best of 48 players in the first preliminaries with 4 match points and 1.714 on average. The Korean won his matches over 30 points 15 and 20.
The two Europeans, both well known, played a shadow role. The Turk Serdar Gumus, newly crowned European artistic champion, finished second in his group with 0.643 on average. Gerhard Kostistanski from Austria, a former mini-star in the World Cup circuit, finished as third and last in his group with two losses and 0.953.
The Egyptian Mohamed Ardash, an accredited billiard photographer, can concentrate on his main hobby in the coming days. He was eliminated with two losses and was the day's last with a moderate score (0.426). The Japanese Ryouko Kobayashi, with her famous family name, also couldn't shine in this strong field and lost two times.
The main roles were for the Vietnamese home players and the South Koreans. They divided the group wins. Thirteen players remained undefeated, Sung Won Jang and the Vietnamese Huu Dat Tran and Hoang Hung Ho were the top three players in average. The highest run came from Than Luan Duong with 11. The Vietnamese became only fifth in the runners up ranking.
The group winners, coming up to the next qualifications:
1 Sung Won Jang 4-1.714-9
2 Huu Dat Tran 4-1.621-9
3 Hoang Hung Ho 4-1.538-5
4 Sung Ha Yoon 4-1.333-8
5 Young Min Lee 4-1.304-5
6 Min Soo Goo 4-1.176-4
7 Quoc Thuan Pham 4-1.153-6
8 Kien Duc Hua 4-1.071-6
9 Chang Hoon Seo 4-1.034-7
10 Van Bien Le 4-1.000-5
11 Canh Phuc Pham 4-0.857-5
12 Dinh Quoc Nguyen 4-0.769-6
13 Hyung Mook Lim 4-0.674-5
14 Quoc Vinh Tran 3-1.538-7
15 Kun Hyoung Park 3-1.111-9
16 Kap Se Kim 2-0.965-5.
Ready for take off in Ho Chi Minh's arena
European artistic champion Serdar Gumus, a shadow role in three cushion
Ryouko Kobayashi, no chance to survive, despite her famous family name
Egyptian billiards photographer Mohamed Ardash, last in the ranking