SHARM EL SHEIKH - The 150 billiard players, a dozen referees, fans and tourists will descend on the Egyptian resort in Sharm El Sheikh from this Sunday. The resort on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on the Red Sea coast is the second venue for a World Cup in the new season. The billiard arena opens its doors to the world's top players and many who combine the World Cup with a short holiday. The wnonderful sandy beaches, clear water and coral reefs beckon. The nice preview: the expected temperatures are very pleasant: 30 degrees during the days.
The 187th World Cup in the history of three cushion, the second in the year 2021, will be played from Sunday 28 November to Saturday 4 December in Sharm el Sheikh. The tournament precedes the World Championship, which is played at the same venue from 7 to 11 December. The last edition of the World Cup in Sharm el Sheikh dates back to 2019. Marco Zanetti then realized the best tournament average in a World Cup (7-game schedule) with 2,718. Most of all the last four games to 40 points were impressive: in 13, 13, 13 and 14 innings!
On the participants list of the World Cup in the Egyptian resort are 149 names, on the provisional reserve list 9 names. The Turkish entries are the highest: 24 players and 4 reserves. Next are Egypt with 22, Korea with 13, Germany and Spain with 10, the Netherlands with 9 and Belgium with 8. The other countries in the total field: France 6, Czech Republic 5, Colombia, Austria, Jordan, Denmark, USA 4, Portugal, Sweden 3, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Ecuador 2, Costa Rica 1.
The 17 seeded players for Sharm El Sheikh include the UMB top 14: Dick Jaspers, Marco Zanetti, Eddy Merckx, Tayfun Tasdemir, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dani Sánchez, Haeng-Jik Kim, Sameh Sidhom, Semih Sayginer, Murat Naci Coklu, Martin Horn, Jérémy Bury, Lütfi Cenet and Sung-won Choil The absentees are Quyet Chien Tran (7th), Myung-woo Cho (10th) and Duc Ahn Chien Nguyen (16th). The three wildcards (2 from the organisation, 1 UMB) have been handed out to the Costa Rican Erick Tellez and the Egyptians Youssef Ossama and Riad Nady.
The Vietnamese players are still absent from UMB competitions due to the drastic sanitary conditions in their country. They are protected in the UMB rankings by retaining their previous ranking points: those from Antalya 2019 for their non-participation in Veghel 2021 and those from Ho Chi Minh 2019 for cancelling for the World Cup in Sharm el Sheikh 2021.
PBA player Frédéric Caudron, who has cut all his ties with the UMB, theoretically loses the 80 points that he gained from his victory in the 2019 Ho Chi Minh World Cup. He will now basically end up somewhere around 70th in the rankings. Roland Forthomme loses the 54 points from that Vietnamese event. His place in the top 20 is in danger if the Belgian does not achieve a high ranking in Sharm El Sheikh.
The organizing country Egypt is one hour ahead of Western Europe, so one hour has to be subtracted from the local time to get the Dutch, Belgian, French and German time, for example. The first three days of qualifying, from Sunday to Tuesday, matches will be played from 11 a.m. local time in Egypt. From the last qualifying day (Wednesday), the tournament will start at 10 am local time.
The matches will be broadcast live on Five&Six's YouTube.
The second 2021 World Cup takes place in Sharm El Sheikh, following the first in Veghel where Dani Sánchez was the winner
Dani Sánchez, glorious winner in the last two World Cups and the Lausanne Masters
Young, talented Myung Woo Cho is still missing in Sharm El Sheikh because of his military service in Korea