WONJU - Torbjörn Blomdahl's team qualified as best for the final eight-team at the World 3-cushion Grand Prix in Wonju, South Korea. The Swedish leading player with his team of four was one of three group winners, the other two winners were Jun Tae Kim with his team and Nikos Polychronopoulos. Myung Woo Cho, the young Korean, shone with three wins and 2,229 on average. The eight qualified teams are: Blomdahl, Polychronopoulos, Jun Tae Kim, Zanetti, Sidhom, Tasdemir, Merckx and Haeng Jik Kim. Dick Jaspers and his team and the teams Dani Sánchez, Quyet Chien Tran and Jung Han Heo are the four teams eliminated. The team challenge started with 12 teams, eight of them qualified. Torbjörn Blomdahl with his team (with TTT Nguyen, Pedro Piedrabuena and Wan Young Choi) finished with 6 match points, 1.558 and a best run of 13. Second best group winner was Nikos Polychronopoulos (with Choong Bok Lee, Jun Hyuk Son and Jung Hee Lee) with 6 match points and 1.481, run of 10. Third best was Jun Tae Kim (with JJ Garcia, Burak Hashas and Therese Klompenhouwer) with 6 match points and 1.451, run 11.
Four teams played man-to-man against each other to a total team score of 120 caroms. Myung Woo Cho, the last World Cup winner, won three matches for his team (Tasdemir) with 49 in 16 innings, 41 in 23 and 46 in 22, making him the best of 48 participants. The 16-year-old Turk, world junior champion Burak Hashas, was also an outlier for Jun Tae Kim's team. He won his games with 33 in 24 innings, 32 in 16 and 28 in 16: good for 1.660 on average. For Jun Tae Kim's team, Therese Klompenhouwer remained unbeaten with victories against three ladies: Ga Yeon Jang (31 in 35), Müjde Karakasli (30 in 23) and Noriko Fukao (25 in 26).
In the head-to-head matches, Torbjörn Blomdahl remained unbeaten with wins over Tayfun Tasdemir (43-17 in 17), Haeng Jik Kim (28-22 in 16) and Jung Han Heo (31-25 in 18). Tayfun Tasdemir, the reigning world champion, played a nice match against Haeng Jik Kim, 35-30 in 15.
In Group A, Dick Jaspers won his matches against Jun Tae Kim 33-26 in 16, Marco Zanetti 36-26 in 22, but Jaspers lost to Eddy Merckx 40-11 in 14. The Belgian in turn lost to Zanetti 35-31 in 15 and to Jun Tae Kim 35-26 in 14/13. Jun Tae Kim also won against Marco Zanetti 28-20 in 11.
In Group B, despite his team's elimination, Dani Sánchez was the undefeated winner. The Spaniard beat Nikos Polychronopoulos 30-22 in 26, Quyet Chien Tran 43-19 in 17 and Sameh Sidhom 32-27 in 25. Sánchez was eliminated with his team (Gonzalez, D'Agata and Park) with 2 match points.
The final rankings in the groups:
Group A:
1 Jun Tae Kim team 3-6-1,451-11
2 Marco Zanetti team 3-4-1,159-11
3 Eddy Merckx team 3-2-1,388-15
4 Dick Jaspers team 3-0-0.955-12
Group B:
1 Nikos Polychronopoulos team 3-6-1,481-10
2 Sameh Sidhom team 3-4-1,374-9
3 Dani Sánchez team 3-2-1,283-10
4 Quyet Chien Tran team 3-0-1,171-12
Group C:
1 Torbjörn Blomdahl team 3-6-1,558-13
2 Tayfun Tasdemir team 3-4-1,406-16
3 Haeng Jik Kim team 3-2-1,328-12
4 Jung Han Heo team 3-0-1,120-8
The matches for the quarter finals are:
Team Merckx-Team Polychronopoulos
Team Jun Tae Kim-Team Zanetti
Team Tasdemir-Team Sidhom
Team Blomdahl-Team Haeng Jik Kim.
The Blomdahl team was the best with Torbjörn (left) and Pedro Piedrabuena (right)
Torbjörn Blomdahl, three wins for his team
Young Turk Burak Hashas (16), excellent performance
Therese Klompenhouwer, unbeaten in her matches with three ladies