HURGHADA - The seventh and final 2018 World Cup will start Sunday, December 2. Traditionally played in the Egyptian resort of Hurghada along the Red Sea. The tournament will be officially opened after four days of preliminaries with the main draw from Thursday to Saturday. Frédéric Caudron has already secured his winning position in the World Cup standings and defends his first place on the world ranking. Four-time world champion Dani Sánchez, out of top 14 on the ranking, has to start in the pre-rounds for the first time in this World Cup. For the spectators and the tourists, the stay in the Egyptian resort outside the billiard arena will be very pleasant: 27 degrees during the day, 16 at night.
The tournament location is the Sheraton Somabay hotel about 45 kilometers from the center of Hurghada. A total of 149 players will be at the start, 14 of whom are seeded for the main tournament according to the world ranking. Three wildcard holders are added to these 14. The fourteen players are Frédéric Caudron, Dick Jaspers, Haeng-Jik Kim, Eddy Merckx, Marco Zanetti, Jung-Han Heo, Semih Sayginer, Quyet Chien Tran, Sameh Sidhom, Murat Naci Coklu, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Sung-Won Choi and Jae-Ho Cho. It is the last time that a World Cup tournament is played in this format. According to the new rules for 2019, the World Cup will be played with 32 players in 8 groups of 4. The numbers one and two advance for the knock-out stages.
The three wildcards in Hurgahda were given to Mohsen Fouda and Ahmed Abdallah on behalf of the organization and Huberney Catano from the UMB. Dani Sánchez is not the only top player on the last qualifying day: Tayfun Tasdemir, Myung-Woo Cho, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Dong-Koong Kang and Jérémy Bury are among the players who have to qualify for the main event. The overall victory in the World Cup circuit goes to Frédéric Caudron with 260 points. The number two is Eddy Merckx (186 points). The match for the Supercup between the world champion and the World Cup winner and the election of Player of the Year, both awarded with 5,000 euros, is no longer on the UMB calendar.
The top 14 is still important for next year for a player to be seeded in the World Cups. In addition, a place in the top 20 is good for invitations for the five 3CC Masters tournaments, which are on the calendar in February, May, July, September and December. The ranking points of Somabay replace the points of La Baule in 2017. Torbjörn Blomdahl, number 13 on the rankings, loses the 80 points for his victory in La Baule. The Swede has to reach surely the semi-finals in Hurghada to stay in the top 20. Frédéric Caudron starts from Hurghada a series in which he loses many ranking points: 54-38-80-38. Dick Jaspers can become the new world ranking leader if he gets twelve points more than Caudron in Hurghada.
A remarkable player on the first qualifying day, Sunday, is the Belgian Peter De Backer, who achieved successes in Hurghada in a distant past, but he has disappeared for some years from the World Cup circuit. Antonio Montes, Jacob Haack Sörensen, Savas Bulut and Ronny Brants are well-known players for the second day on Monday. On the third day, the arena is reserved for Filippos Kasidokostas, Martin Horn (World Cup winner in La Baule this year), Dion Nelin, Duc Anh Chien Nguyen, David Zapata, Chi Yeon Cho and Jean Paul de Bruijn, Therese Klompenhouwer and Tolgahan Kiraz.
On Wednesday, big names like Dani Sánchez, Jérémy Bury, Tayfun Tasdemir, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Dong-Koong Kang, Tonny Carlsen, Eddy Leppens, David Martinez, Javier Palazón, Myung-Woo Cho, Birol Uymaz, Adnan Yüksel, Can Capak and Roland Forthomme come to the arena.
Kozoom will broadcast all matches. The first two days of the preliminaries will be free for Kozoom members, from then for the Premium subscribers.
Frédéric Caudron has already secured the victory in the 2018 World Cup cycle.
Dani Sánchez, due to his ranking, has to play in the last pre-rounds to reach the main draw.