BORDEAUX - The first day at the World championship three cushion in Bordeaux has already shown that the level of playing might be much higher than last year. At the first World championship in the Palais des Congrès, where many players complained about the quality of the cloths, the overall average of 32 players on the first day was 0.973.
With the same number of players and matches, in the same venue, the average on the opening day this year was 1.286. The new blue color of the cloths, introduced by the UMB in Bordeaux, was received very positively both by players and spectators.
The highlights on the first day were the matches of Semih Saygıner in ten innings, Robinson Morales in 14, Javier Palazón in 17 and Jérôme Barbeillon in 20 innings. The first big surprise came from Marc Boingneres, Boin-Boin for his fans, who defeated Pedro Piedrabuena in the last evening session.
The world's top twelve enters the arena today (Wednesday as of 13.30) for its first performance. Torbjörn Blomdahl, the title holder, normally has a nice warm-up against Christakis Christoforou from Cyprus. Frédéric Caudron kicks off against Erick Tellez from Costa Rica, the number two at the Pan-American championships this year, Dick Jaspers opens against Antoine Gholam from Lebanon and Eddy Merckx against Raimond Burgman.
In the second session, at 16.00, Marco Zanetti appears in the arena for his first match against the Pan-American champion Hugo Patino. Dani Sánchez plays Christian Rudolph, Sameh Sidhom starts against Kokkoris Kostas and Nikos Polychronopoulos against Cetin Behzat from Switzerland.
Semih Sayginer, yesterday's best player in 10 innings
Colombian Robinson Morales had a promising start in Bordeaux