ANKARA - The World Cup in Ankara, Turkey, from 21-27 February, opens the new year with a field of participants back at full strength. The Vietnamese players return to the World Cup cycle after missing two events, in Veghel and Sharm El Sheikh, due to COVID (travel) issues. The Vietnamese number one, Quyet Chien Tran, has maintained his sixth place in the rankings. He is preceded only by Dick Jaspers, Marco Zanetti, Dani Sánchez, Haeng Jik Kim and Eddy Merckx.
The inscriptions for the players who have priority because of high rankings closes in two days (Thursday). After that, players will move up from the reserve list, which currently consists of 83 players. The experience of the World Cup in Sharm El Sheikh shows that between 50 and 75 players from the reserve list get the chance to move up to the field of 149 players.
The top fourteen, from Dick Jaspers to Torbjörn Blomdahl, are leading the playing list. Wild cards have been handed out to Jose Juan Garcia and for the host country Lütfi Cenet and Can Capak. Three Turks, Tayfun Tasdemir, Murat Naci Coklu and Semih Sayginer, are among the top 14 players.
Best-known European players who are already on the players list are Nikos Polychronopoulos, Peter Ceulemans, Ruen Legazpi, Therese Klompenhouwer, Michael Nilsson, Roland Forthomme, Sam van Etten, Jeffrey Jorissen and Jean van Erp. From outside Europe: Sung-won Choi, Duc Anh Chien, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, Jun Tae Kim, Xuan Cuong Ma, Robinson Morales, Choong-Bok Lee.
Striking is the number of German players on the reserve list. And also one of the well known names is that of Pierre Soumagne, who returned from a PBA adventure last year.
On the reserve list are among others (in order of registration):
1 Tom Löwe
13 Jieun Han
17 Gerhard Kostistansky
26 Alessio D'Agata
32 Carlos Crespo
37 Jean Reverchon
41 Pierre Soumagne
42 Ji Hun Ahn
73 Nikolaus Kogelbauer
For the Netherlands on the reserve list
3 Sylvia Eckel
5 Volkan Cetin
16 Herman van Daalen
19 Jordy de Kruijf
24 Ronald van Geyt
34 Huub Wilkowski
38 Jetty Beersma
46 Pauline Gerritsen
56 Joey de Kok
For Belgium
2 Eric de Busser
12 Alain Saeijs
14 Peter Willems
25 Bart Ceulemans
57 Francis Forton
For Germany
1 Tom Löwe
6 Hakan Celik
11 Murat Gökmen
22 Tobias Bouerdick
28 Gurhan Kabak
29 Lukas Stamm
31 Yigit Selahattin
40 Murat Hakan Guelter
50 Lütfi Kefeli
51 Frank Sudar
53 Olcay Gunes
54 Stefan Siegburg
55 Berkulay Goncuoglu
59 Tay-Dien Truong
62 Frank Spruzina
63 Abdulkadir Kavak
65 Amir Ibraimov
67 Mehmet Housein
71 Adnan Cubbeli