10/20/2016
France is more present on the international 3-cushion stage than it has ever been. The successful World championship of 2015 (Bordeaux) will be followed by the World Cup tournament in La Baule this month, with the second edition of the World championship in Vordeaux soon after. The La Baule event will take place from 24 to 30 October, near the Atlantic coast.
Can anybody stop Jérémy Bury’s winning streak? France's most prominent player looked almost invincible in the summer, reaching the final in Luxor and winning the Guri World Cup as well as the Verhoeven open in New York. He must be considered one of the favorites again, next week. The French champion doesn’t want to put too much pressure on himself before the start. He realizes: ,,There are so many players who can win big tournaments that it’s impossible to make a prediction.’’
The world’s top twelve, headed by the European players Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Eddy Merckx, Dick Jaspers and Marco Zanetti, couldn’t wish for a better preparation in the run-up to the world championship, one month later in Bordeaux. The differences on top of the ranking are minimal: Caudron leads by 404 points, followed by Blomdahl 376, Jaspers 341 and Eddy Merckx 327 points.
The well known French player and billiard promoter Joel Switala made sure that his country returned to the World Cup calendar after a long absence. Ten years ago, Switala already planned to organize an international tournament. And finally, with the sixth World Cup this year in La Baule, the 63-year-old organizer has realized his dream.
The world top and a maximum field of participants in the preliminaries gather from 24 until 30 October in the fashionable city for another showdown. The venue is the Complexe Sportif des Salines. In the long World Cup cycle since 1986, Raymond Ceulemans was the last winner on French soil, in Orleans in 1992. Before that, four World Cups were held in Paris, three times won by Raymond Ceulemans and once by Torbjörn Blomdahl.
Two protagonists in Joel Switala's top team in the French league, Frédéric Caudron and Jérémy Bury, are starting as the favorites for the win. The Belgian is the world’s number one and winner of two previous World Cups this year. Torbjörn Blomdahl is still the reigning world and European champion, and of course the Asians will send a strong delegation to try and prevent more European success.
Joel Switala, born in Vendôme in 1953, married to Laurence and father of two daughters, is a billiard player for 47 years already. He played for many clubs and is chairman of La Baule. The Frenchman is well known in the world of three cushion. He was the sponsor of strong teams with Eddy Merckx, Dick Jaspers, Ludo Dielis, Semih Saygıner, Raymond and Peter Ceulemans, Richard Bitalis and Tayfun Tasdemir from 2002 until 2008.
Switala participated in twelve World Cups all over the world and played in the Carom Cafe in New York on six occasions. ,,I already had the idea of organizing a World Cup in 2005, when I played my first World Cup in Sluiskil. We will first take stock after this year, then see if we continue to organize.’’
The World Cup in La Baule will be played in an arena in La Baule with a capacity of 1200 spectators. Thirty people are involved in the preparation and organization. The city government, in addition, will give its full cooperation with the technical service.
The twelve seeded players are Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Eddy Merckx, Dick Jaspers, Marco Zanetti, Dani Sánchez, Sameh Sidhom, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Jae Ho Cho, Dong Koong Kang, Roland Forthomme and Haeng Jik Kim.
The wildcards are given to Jérémy Bury, who was not yet a top twelve player at the time of the seeding, the others are handed to Javier Teran (Ecuador), Choong-Bok Lee (South Korea), Zayed Mohamed (Egypt) and Jérôme Barbeillon (France).
The registration for the tournament was already fully booked within a few hours after the opening with the maximum number of 150 participants.
The first round starts on Monday, October 24th at 11.00. The main tournament with 48 players will start on Friday, the semi-finals are Sunday at 13.30, the final 17.00.
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