ANTALYA - The first World Cup this year, from February 11 to 17 in Antalya, has a field of 163 players, coming from 20 countries. The Netherlands send the most participants (26), the same number as the Turkish, the Germans are with 17, Greece, Korea and Belgium with fifteen.
Frédéric Caudron tops the list of twelve seeded players, Sung-Won Choi defends the title he won last year in an exciting final against Tayfun Tasdemir.
The new system with only four wildcards is first applied, the invitations of the federation have been given to Merlin Romero (Venezuela) and O. Takeshima (Japan), the wildcarss of the organizer to Tayfun Tasdemir and Turkish champion Ahmet Alp.
The tournament will be held in Hotel Limak Limra, the preliminary rounds are played to 30 points, the final qualifying round and the main tournament to forty caroms with a timer of 40 seconds.
Twelve players are seeded for the final qualification round, where they are divided in groups with two players from the previous rounds. These twelve are Lütfi Cenet, Martin Horn, Adnan Yüksel, Choong Bok Lee, Raimond Burgman, Sameh Sidhom, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Dong Kang Koong, Eddy Leppens, Jef Philipoom Savas Bulut and Roland Forthomme.
The participants come from:
The Netherlands 26
Turkey 26
Germany 17
Belgium, Korea, Greece 15
Spain 10
Denmark 8
Sweden, Egypt, Czech Republic 6
France 5
Austria, Portugal 4
Italy, Venezuela, Ecuador 2
Japan, Luxembourg, Finland 1.