SEOUL - The Korean home crowd can already prepare for a final match at the World championship with at least one player from the homeland. Sung-Won Choi and Hyun Min Seo won the first quarterfinal matches and meet each other in the semifinals tomorrow. The next two matches are with three Europeans and one Korean.
Two Europeans couldn't resist the power of two Koreans in the first session. The Belgian Eddy Merckx was outplayed, one round after Frédéric Caudron, by Choi (40-32 in 19, 2105/1789), the Spaniard Ruben Legazpi by the still unknown Hyun Min Seo, who triumphed 40-32 in 21 .
Sung-Won Choi couldn't impose in Lausanne last week, but seems to have peaked on the right moment. The strong finisher had a formidable last shot, at 33-32 for the Belgian, the Korean finished with eight.
Hyun Min Seo, who is 104th at the world rankings and only gained some points so far in the World Cups. His best performance: he was in the top 32 in the World Cup of Guri. With his place in the semi-final at the World championship, he makes a big step towards the top 40.
His growing form, Seo showed during the last Korean ranking tournament two weeks ago, where he lost from the penalty spots to Jung Han Heo.
Two matches for the last semi-finalists (12.30 Korean time):
Jean Paul de Bruijn-Tayfun Tasdemir
Torbjörn Blomdahl-Jae Ho Cho.