VILA NOVA DE GAIA - The tournament was on the threshold of the quarterfinals and again four players from top twelve were blowed off at doomsday: Dick Jaspers, the dethroned world champion, Kyung-Roul Kim, Jérémy Bury and Martin Horn will not show up for the quarterfinals in the World championship in Porto. Two Belgians, Eddy Merckx and Frédéric Caudron, sparkled in the last session of the day, two outsiders were the sensation again: Sameh Sidhom and O Takeshima.
What a tournament is this World championship so far. Frédéric Caudron might say: ,,It always happens in the Worlds, where the best players come together to play at the highest level.'' Dick Jaspers: ,,I am not the only victim today in the battle with so many strong players in this World championship.''
The Dutchman, who not only lost his European title, but now his world title as well, was right: the top ten is in danger at this WC, many new players are knocking on the door to crawl out of the role of outsider.
O Takeshima, the 36-year-old Japanese hero in this tournament, is the perfect example of that theory. He played out Dick Jaspers 40-32 after having dominated the entire match, because his opponent had a bad start and could not close the gap.
The Egyptian Sameh Sidhom defeated a figurehead of three-cushion: the Korean Kyung-Roul Kim, who was always three, four and five points behind against his young opponent three and lost on one point after a thrilling final: 40-3Frédéric Caudron and Eddy Merckx made no mistakes, although Caudron looked at a 20-8 backlog early in his match against Jérémy Bury. His French opponent, with whom he plays in the European topteam of Agipi, had a blistering start. Caudron needed a tough fight to come back and finished with a wonderful run of eight: 40-35 in 24 innings.
Nevertheless, the best winner in the session was Eddy Merckx, who was superior in his match with Martin Horn, thanks to two runs of eleven. The Belgian champion closed the match in fifteen innings (40-15), was not threatened at any moment and just needed one more inning than Kyung-Roul Kim's shortest match so far.
The matches in the quarter finals (on Saturday):
13.00: Coklu-Zanetti
15.00: Lee Choi-
18.00: Sidhom-Merckx
20.00: Caudron-Takeshima.