World Cup starts at a snail's pace

HURGHADA - Three tables side by side in one room in the last session of the evening. Frédéric Caudron loses his first set against Murat Tüzül, Marco Zanetti is defeated in the first two sets by Savas Bulut and Sung-Won Choi walks on thin ice against Thomas Andersen after two lost sets.

Eddy Merckx also had a hard start in the round before against Javier Palazón and Kyung-Roul Kim could not find his rhythm against the Colombian Henry Diaz.

So maybe it is true what Dick Jaspers - and in previous days a lot of other players – concluded: the start of the World Cup in Hurghada is so often a bottleneck for top players.

Look at last year: Dani Sánchez, Eddy Merckx and Filippos Kasidokostas threw in the towel in the first round.
Dick Jaspers says: ,,For Dutch and Belgian players it's always difficult to play on these Platin billiards, which we are not used to.'' He pointed to the 'character' of the billiards, who were a torture for the big names in the tournaments in Turkey and Egypt.

But who says that it applies to everyone?

Peter Ceulemans, for instance, feels as a fish in the clear blue waters flushing on the beaches of the Sunrise Garden Beach Hotel.
He was the only one from the qualification rounds who consistently played high averages. Today, at the start of the main tournament, Dani Sánchez was the only player who played over two (2.071), Jae Ho Cho finished just below (1.900).

It also took three days before the first run of ten was made in the preliminary rounds, so there may be a 'character difference' of billiards.

Filippos Kasidokostas improved the run to twelve in the afternoon, but even in this final phase five players (Takeshima R, Riad Nady, Adnan Yüksel, Murat Tüzül and Javier Palazón) remained below the one average barrier.

In the last session of the day, there was for sure a lot of tension.

Frédéric Caudron could reverse his slow start quickly and sprinted out to the finish in his match against Tüzül: 15-12, 15-7, 15-5, 1.365 average.

Marco Zanetti did what he did at least a thousand times in his career: blow a 3-2 backlog away with a magnificent endrush that took him to 15-8 (9), 15-10 (8), 15-4 (5), averaging 1.700.

The Vietnamese Quyet Chien Tran did the same with Can Capak, whom he defeated in the decider 15-1 and Sung-Won Choi, who was also 2-0 behind, won the amazing blood-sweat-and-tears match against poor Thomas Anderson: 15-14 in the last set.

The matches for tomorrow in the 8th final (starting at 11.00 Egyptian time):
Torbjörn Blomdahl-Murat Naci Coklu
Jérémy Bury-Dani Sánchez
Lütfi Cenet-Henry Diaz
Peter Ceulemans-Filippos Kasidokostas
Eddy Merckx-Martin Horn
Dick Jaspers-Jae Ho Cho
Sung-Won Choi– Marco Zanetti
Quyet Chien Tran-Frédéric Caudron