BORDEAUX - The maestro himself climbed the VIP stands in the early hours before the start of the World championship on Friday. Raymond Ceulemans was asked for an interview by two Korean media stations and commented later: ,,Two young boys asked nice questions and they even knew who Sang-Lee has been in billiards.''
It's Friday around noon, the stands of the Palais des Congrès are already pretty crowded for the first session in the knockout stage. And what a matches are announced by Kurt Ceulemans, the ringmaster.
They are qualified with sixteen for the final rounds in the World championships in Bordeaux. Three Turks, two Belgians, two Colombians, two Koreans, one Frenchman, one Greek, one Dutchman, one Spaniard, one Swede, one Italian and one Vietnamese.
The first visitors were already attracted for a preview: Marco Zanetti did his warm up at the training table. The Italian master, with two world titles to his name, was one of the stars in the preliminaries and predicted in one of his interviews, like Dick Jaspers did before: ,,I expect one of the top ten players for the title, because we are better in resisting the stress of such a tournament.''
There are less Koreans than expected in the main draw (only Haeng-Jik Kim and Jae-Ho Cho), Frédéric Caudron is out for the main event, two surprising Colombians have qualified, Huberney Cataño and Robinson Morales, who has a huge palmares in South America, but is here for his first World championship in his career.
Kurt Ceulemans, the ringmaster, to announce, Raymond Ceulemans and Francis Connesson in the stands
Haeng-Jik Kim and Huberney Cataño: let's start the games
What will bring us the clash between Turkish Semih Saygıner, who showed us a great form, and Murat Naci Coklu. Torbjörn Blomdahl against Marco Zanetti is the bump between two players with a tremendous track record and an amazing routine. Dick Jaspers against Eddy Leppens, so called the derby of the lowlands. The last remaining Frenchman Jérôme Barbeillon, ready for the showdown with Huberney Cataño.
The floodlights have been switched on, the spectators are ready to watch a wonderful day.
The champagne waiting the VIPs in the stands for the World championship
The matches for today in the best sixteen:
13.30:
Semih Sayginer-Murat Naci Coklu
Jérôme Barbeillon-Huberney Cataño
Haeng-Jik Kim-Tayfun Tasdemir
Marco Zanetti-Torbjörn Blomdahl
16.00:
Robinson Morales-Dani Sánchez
Eddy Merckx-Jae-Ho Cho
Nikos Polychronopoulos-Minh Cam Ma
Dick Jaspers-Eddy Leppens.