SEOUL - The reigning world champion, Frédéric Caudron, has lost his title in three cushion in a painful way. The Belgian was knocked down at the World championship in Seoul without any chance by little Korean Jae Ho Cho 40-11. The punishment was hard and clear: not only by the score (in fifteen innings), most of all in average: Cho 2.667, Caudron 0.773.
Frédéric Caudron has enjoyed his world title exactly one year: he won it for his home crowd in Antwerp last year. The Belgian showed to by a worthy champion, sparkled at the highest level throughout the year and took the world title one cushion in between.
Today, there came a (temporary) end to his hegemony in the Korean billiards arena. Caudron started with some excellent matches in the preliminaries, but had no feeling and didn't show any confidence against the Korean Jae Ho Cho, who put him already far behind after the starting innings.
The top favorite of the Koreans (with Sung-Won Choi), who won this year's World Cup in Istanbul, ran away from the defending champion with two devastating runs of twelve and eight in the sixth and seventh, building up a 23-7 lead. The remainder of the match was a formality, because Cho scored another seven (38-10) and Caudron was just sitting on his chair and watching the show.
The second Asian in this round, the Vietnamese Quyet Chien Tran, could not complet the sensation: he lost to Torbjörn Blomdahl. The Swede shared himself among the favorites by a 40-30 victory in twenty innings. He shows up in the quarterfinals later today in a battle with eight, fighting for the world title.
Three title favorites and the American Pedro Piedrabuena, who was the best of the first days, were eliminated in the quarters. Marco Zanetti, winner in Lausanne, faced a superior Tayfun Tasdemir and was beaten 40-23 in 16. The Turk showed his top form: 2.500 average.
Dick Jaspers was stunned by Jean Paul de Bruijn in the Dutch clash: in sixteen innings. The 'Zeeuw', showed a lot of confidence as well, as he did at the World championship in Lugo 2005, where he lost the final to Dani Sánchez.
And Dani Sánchez was kicked down by another Korean, Sung-Won Choi (40-24 in 13), who was the best man in four rounds in this session.
Eddy Merckx needed a hard fight for the win in his match against Huberney Catano. He defeated the last of the South Americans 40-30 in 36 innings.
Pedro Piedrabuena's (fantastic) role may go home and leave the championship. The Uruguayan, now living in Detroit, USA, freaked out the competition with his tumultuous start, but was back on his feet again after his los against Hyun Min Seo, 40-18 in 19.
Ruben Legazpi reached the last eight in a neck-and-neck race with Jung Han Heo. The number one ranked Korean met a very strong fighter on the table, the matches ended up 40-40, the Spaniard won by penalty shots 3-2.
The matches for the quarterfinals today (Korean time):
18.30:
Seo-Legazpi
Choi-Merckx
20.00:
De Bruijn-Tasdemir
Blomdahl-Cho.