HO CHI MINH - The young Korean Jun Tae Kim, with three podium places at the Junior World championships on his honors list, was the last to close the winners group with still eleven Asians. Vietnamese Thanh Luc Tran showed himself the best with 4 match points and a 1.621 followed by Sung Ha Yoon and Quang Hai Dinh. The real world stars, like Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dani Sánchez, HaengJik Kim, Sung-Won Choi, Martin Horn and Myung-Woo Cho, will show up in the final qualification rounds tomorrow (Thursday). The match length goes to 40 caroms, for fifteen players of them there is a place reserved in the main draw. The Thanhs, the Sungs and Quangs have rolled out the red carpet for the world top.
Among the sixteen winners on Wednesday were five Europeans: the Turks Murat Tüzül and Ahmet Alp, the Swede David Pennör, Spaniard Juan David Zapata and Dutchman Barry van Beers. Murat Tüzül played the best match of the day facing Vietnamese Thanh Pham and beat him 30-8 in 11 innings and a run of 13. Hyun Il Kim, Sung Il Yeong and Gökhan Salman also performed in excellent matches. Tüzül had a moderate second match against Yusuke Mori, which he lost, but thanks to the strong start the Turk went along to the next round.
Barry van Beers, one of the Dutch sub top players, has not reached the main tournament since his return to the World Cup circuit. He suffered a tough trip to Ho Chi Minh, which lasted 24 hours with a stopover of nearly 5 hours in Bangkok. "I arrived the day before my first matches, but I had a good night's sleep," he explained before his matches, in which he faced the German Ronny Lindemann and Vietnamese Xuan Cuong Ma. Ronny the Rocket was not a shadow of the player on his first day. He was, like the other German, Dustin Jäschke, eliminated with two losses. Van Beers, who reached the last 32 a few times in his previous World Cup life, won his second match against Ma without being in trouble: 30-24 in 18.
The best-known players for the last qualifying day, Thursday, with twelve groups, of which the group winners and the best three runners-up will move to the main draw with eight groups of four players:
Dani Sánchez with the young Korean Jun Tae Kim.
Torbjörn Blomdahl with Dion Nelin and Juan David Zapata.
Martin Horn with Can Capak and David Pennör.
Nikos Polychronopoulos with Jose Juan Garcia and Barry van Beers.
Myung-Woo Cho with Birol Uymaz.
HaengJik Kim with two Japanese from the previous round.
Sung-Won Choi with Ahmet Alp.
Eddy Leppens with two players from previous qualification, Tran Tanh Tu Nguyen and Murat Tüzül.
Robinson Morales with Duc Anh Chien Nguyen.
Lütfi Cenet with Adnan Yüksel.
Dong-Koong Kang with Roland Forthomme.
Tonny Carlsen with Javier Palazón and the day winner of Wednesday, Thanh Luc Tran.
The day ranking on Wednesday:
1 Thanh Luc Tran 4-1.621-8
2 Sung Ha Yoon 4-1.578-14
3 Quang Hai Dinh 4-1.538-8
4 Duc Tran Minh 4-1.500-8
5 Duc Anh Chien Nguyen 4-1.463-7
6 Barry van Beers 4-1.428-6
7 David Pennör 4-1.132-6
8 Juan David Zapata 4-1.111-5
9 Thanh Tien Le 4-1.052-5
10 Tran Tanh Tu Nguyen 3-1.111-6
11 Ahmet Alp 2-1.741-10
12 Hironori Nakajama 2-1.642-10
13 Alsushi Kiyota 2-1.642-6
14 Choonwoo Park 2-1.538-7
15 Murat Tüzül 2-1.473-13
16 Jun Tae Kim 2-1.410-10
Ahmet Alp, one of two Turks moving up to the last qualifications
Dutch Barry van Beers survived a tough group after a 24 hours trip to Ho Chi Minh
David Pennör, joining his Swedish countryman Torbjörn Blomdahl on the next day in Ho Chi Minh
Jun Tae Kim, the young Korean with his World champion's history