SHARM EL SHEIKH - Once in a while, the World Cup is the stage for a little miracle at the billiards. The Egyptian agricultural engineer Mohsen Fouda astonished the world in 2018 with a sensational victory over Belgian world clash player Eddy Merckx. The now 67-year-old billiard player has since dropped back to number 288 in the world rankings, but had another miraculous highlight in the Sharm El Sheikh World Cup this Tuesday afternoon. Dutchman Jean Paul de Bruijn, a world number one in one cushion, ex-prof player in PBA, was brutally swept away by the veteran, who after an early lead ran away from his weak-playing Dutch opponent to finally win 30-20 in 20 innings on this third day at the World Cup, where Vietnamese Xuan Cuong Ma and two Turks, Burak Hashas and Omer Karakurt, finished in top three of the day's rankings..
Mohsen Fouda, who lost to Robinson Morales 30-3 in this same World Cup last year, now found himself in seventh heaven again. The victory over Jean Paul de Bruijn did not help him further in the tournament, as he lost to Greek Kostas Kokkoris, but brought back the memory to the Merckx-match again for a moment: the 40-29 win with a 16 top run in the end. He was the better of De Bruijn now after 1-1 in 4 innings, a run of 8 (10-3), 4 and 2 just before the stop, a short answer of De Bruijn with 7, followed by a solid finish of the Egyptian (30-20), who was allowed to proudly return after his two matches to the capital Cairo where he lives in the Pyramids area in Giza.
The Dutch/Greek/Egyptian group was closed by a bizarre ending after all. Kostas Kokkoris, who had it all in his own hands, was totally invisible in his match against Jean Paul de Bruijn, who led 14-0 after 7 innings, still had a margin 19-10 after 5 points in 9 innings and was able to calmly finish the match, as Kokkoris played an improbably bad match with 14 times 0 and 9 times 1 in 25 innings: final score 30-14 in 25, leaving the Dutchman as the best on average in the group with three players with two match points: 1.111.
The third day at the World Cup went on to a nice climax with Vietnamese Xuan Cuong Ma as one of the last and best group winners against Dutchman Sam van Etten (30-18 in 20). That made Ma the top winner with four match points and 1.538 on average. Turks Burak Hashas and Omer Karakurt were strong winners with four match points and 1.500, ahead of the second Vietnamese, Vinh Phuong Bao with four points and 1.428, with Pierre Soumagne on the same scores.
Four Turks finished among the 16 group winners, two Vietnamese, one Frenchman, one Korean, 1 German, 1 Portuguese, 1 Belgian, 1 Colombian, 1 Lebanese, 1 Dutchman, 1 Egyptian and 1 Czech.
Peter De Backer won the match with Volkan Cetin in an enthralling and evenly matched match: at 26-26, the Belgian went on with 4 as the winner. Pierre Soumagne beat both Tolgahan Kiraz and Arnim Kahofer by a wide margin. Lebanese Fadi Abousaleh was a curious winner of his group with 0.674 on average. Dustin Jäschke was group winner, but also below 1 average.
Ye Sung Jeong had the best start of all participants with 40 in 12, but still had to fight for the group win against Ahmet Alp: 30-30 in 29. Berkay Karakurt played a superb final game against Jan Ales (30-5 in 15), but had lost his first game to Ahmed Abdallah. Omer Karakurt won his two games against Lukas Stamm and Regay Henry, Burak Hashas, the 17-year-old Turk, shone with wins over Claus Maurer and Behzat Cetin in 23 and 17 innings.
Five of 16 group winners finished with 3 match points, Jean Paul de Bruijn was the only one with 2 match points.
The ranking of the top 16 after the third day:
1 Xuan Cuong Ma (Vietnam) 4-1.538-9
2 Burak Hashas (Turkeye) 4-1.500-5
3 Omer Karakurt (Turkeye) 4-1.500-5
4 Pierre Soumagne (France) 4-1.428-6
5 Vinh Phuong Bao (Vietnam) 4-1.428-6
6. Mehmet Goren (Turkey) 4-1.200-6
7 Jose Miguel Soares (Portugal) 4-1.176-6
8 Peter De Backer (Belgium) 4-1.153-5
9 Robinson Morales (Colombia) 4-1.111-7
10 Fadi Abousaleh (Lebanon) 4-0.666-3
11 Ye Sung Jeong (Korea) 3-1.463-10
12 Ahmed Abdallah (Egypt) 3-1.132-7
13 Savas Güngor (Turkey) 3-1.111-7
14 Radek Novak (Czech) 3-1.0781-8
15 Dustin Jäschke (Germany) 3-0.937-8
16 Jean Paul de Bruijn (Netherlands) 2-1.111-7.
The group format for the last qualifications (12 group winners and 3 best runners-up to the main draw with 32):
Poule A: Gungor, Abdallah, Jun Tae Kim
Poule B: Novak, Jeong, Duc Anh Chien Nguyen
Poule C: Jäschke, Abousaleh, Polychronopoulos
Poule D: De Bruijn, Morales, Myung Woo Cho
Poule E: TTT Nguyen, De Backer, Cenet
Poule F: Maréchal, Soares, Choong Bok Lee
Poule G: Nelin, Sörensen, Goren
Poule H: Abdin, Soumagne, Abu Tayeh
Poule I: Jorissen, Bao, Garcia
Poule J: Lindemann, Karakurt, Seo
Poule K: Cha, Hashas, Forthomme
Poule L: Trung Hau Do Nguyen, Ma, Ceulemans.