12/15/2016
HURGHADA/EL GOUNA – The last World Cup in 2016 in Egypt, closing the cycle of seven events, is the stage for many well known European players. There is a total field of 150, the Europeans are with 92. Most remarkable is that the German Martin Horn returns to the international podium, as well as the Dutchman Dave Christiani. Both players start the tournament on the first day: Sunday 11 December.
The calendar of the World Cup cycle 2016 counted seven tournaments all over the world. The summary of the last six tournaments, with only European winners: Dick Jaspers was the winner in Bursa, Eddy Merckx won in Luxor, Frédéric Caudron in Ho Chi Minh City and Porto, Jérémy Bury triumphed in Guri and Murat Naci Coklu was the winner in La Baule.
The Egyptian billiard federation is hosting the last World Cup in 2016 to determine the overall winner after seven World Cups. UMB president Farouk Barki and his great organizing team moved, for the first time many years, from the billiard arena in the Sunrise Garden Beach to the wonderful Mövenpick resort in El Gouna. The start of the preliminaries was today, Sunday, the final day is on Saturday.
The final winner of the World Cup cycle 2016 will be known after this last World Cup in El Gouna. Frédéric Caudron is leading the ranking. The Belgian collected 246 points in the previous six World Cups. Dick Jaspers is second with 232 points. These two players will decide in Egypt who will perform at the Supercup Gala in Antwerp on the 4th of March 2017. The opponent for the World Cup winner is the world champion Dani Sánchez. The pursuers are Nikos Polychronopoulos (168), Eddy Merckx (166) and Jérémy Bury (160), far behind the leaders Caudron and Jaspers.
The El Gouna World Cup is launched today, one day after the finals at the Junior World championship. Frédéric Caudron won the final tournament last year recording 2.197 of average. He defeated Marco Zanetti in the final, Lütfi Cenet and Dani Sánchez were the numbers three on the stage.
The ranking is under pressure again in the last event of the year. The last eight World Cup points determine the total number of points, which means that the points of the 2015 World Cup in Istanbul will be withdrawn. Murat Naci Coklu will lose 80 points for victory, Roland Forthomme 54 as the second in that tournament.
Frédéric Caudron seems to be the solid number 1 in the world ranking as the Belgian leader (400 points) only defends 16 points against Dick Jaspers (346) 38 points.
The German Martin Horn returns at the World Cup podium and will start on the first day of the tournament, like the Dutchman Dave Christiani. The junior payers Tae-Kwan Kim, Jiseung Han, Tom Löwe, Andres Carrion and Ahmed Hatem also start their performance on Sunday. The new world champion Myung-Woo Cho plays his first matches on Tuesday.
The play sessions start at 10.00 CET. The draw for the main tournament is on Wednesday. The seeded players are Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dick Jaspers, Eddy Merckx, Marco Zanetti, Dani Sánchez Sameh Sidhom, Nikos Polychronopoulos, Jérémy Bury, Quyet Chien Tran, Dong Koong Kang and Jae Ho Cho. The wild cards are distributed to Hyung Kon Kim (ACBC), Roland Forthomme (CEB), Henry Diaz (CPB), Riad Nady and Khaled Erfan (organization).
The UMB and the Egyptian organization invite you all to visit the 2016 event or watch it on Kozoom, that will broadcast all the matches live.
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