Jaspers makes it three in a row.

Las Vegas, April 3rd ,2022

It’s like the old Gary Lineker joke: “ Football is a sport with 22 players on a field and the Germans win.” We are almost at the point where we could call 3-cushion “a sport with three balls and Jaspers wins”.

In the Las Vegas World Cup, two surprise semifinalists and a Korean supertalent could not keep the Dutchman from winning his third major in a row. After the Sharm el Sheik World Championship and the Ankara World Cup, he also put the Las Vegas World Cup on his long honor list.

Semifinals:

The Sidhom - Bury match had two radically different faces. Before halftime, everything looked to go Bury’s way when he had 26 points after 10 innings. A fantastic comeback by Sidhom (run of 11) changed everything, and Bury stopped scoring. The Egyptian booked his first ever place in the final: 50-39 in 29/28 innings.

Jaspers had his usual slow start against Kim, but later on he played well over 3.000 average for 10 innings to get into the driving seat. Haeng-Jik struggled to find rhythm and positions, and he could not keep the Dutchman from scoring. The fight had a clear winner: 50-31 in 26/25.

Final:

This time, Jaspers could not get going at all: 3 points after 9 innings. Sidhom had a small lead, then lost it and was a handful of points behind for most of the match. The last 15 minutes of the final were superbly entertaining, mostly because Sidhom never gave up and produced some spectacular shots.

But in the end, you guessed it, Jaspers crossed the line first: 50-43 in 30/29 innings. It was a dream tournament for Sidhom, a 27th (!) World Cup victory for Jaspers.

UMB president Farouk Barki happily confirmed that the Las Vegas event will be on the calendar for the next two years. The third World Cup of 2022 will take place in Ho Chi Minh city, from 23-29 May.

Las Vegas, April 2nd, 2022

Egypt, France, Netherlands and Korea.

After a long day of exciting knock-out matches in Las Vegas, it’s time to draw some conclusions. And there are many!

Jeremy Bury is back. After a period with lesser results and lower averages, the Frenchman has found his form again and he is his usual competitive, deliberate self.

Sameh Sidhom has made so much progress, his career sees a second high point in Las Vegas. The first was of course his semifinal place in the 2019 World Championship in Randers.

Haeng Jik Kim has already won three World Cups, but he is hungry for more. The mercurial Korean with the abundant talent can sometimes start his matches poorly, but he usually finishes them with brilliance.

And Dick Jaspers? Never, ever give that man an extra inning, a last chance. If you do that, you’ve just lost the match. He will get over the finish line, no matter what it takes.

Cuesco and Five & Six have all the detailed results for you. This is what happened in the all-important round of 16, followed by the quarterfinals:

Sánchez – M.W. Cho 50-41 in 29

Sayginer – H.J. Kim 20-50 in 22

C.B. Lee – Zanetti 39-50 in 27/28

Jaspers - Coklu 50-48 in 36

J.H. Heo – Catano 40-50 in 32

Bury – Capak 50-38 in 30/29

Piedrabuena – Blomdahl 50-38 in 30/29

Sidhom – Q.C. Tran 50-38 in 34/33

QF.

Sánchez – H.J. Kim 46-50 in 26/27

Zanetti – Jaspers 16-50 in 16/17

Catano – Bury 36-50 in 20

Piedrabuena – Sidhom 43-50 in 26/27

In tomorrow’s semifinals, Jaspers will play H.J. Kim, Bury will face Sidhom.

Tournament page

https://www.umb-carom.org/PG344L2/Union-Mondiale-de-Billard.aspx

Live stream and live results page

http://umb.cuesco.net/

You Tube Live stream :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCim6RDHkn960qAquiglFeSg

Las Vegas , April 1st ,2022

Nobody is safe in the Vegas main draw.

It’s far from easy to work your way through the qualification stages of a World Cup, but it’s even harder to get into the knock-out event: the last 16. From the eight groups of four, the best two of each group advance to the Friday matches.

Reputations mean very little these days, and neither do titles won in the past. Merckx, Forthomme, Nelin, Tasdemir, Horn and Sung Won Choi are just a few of the big names that were eliminated on Thursday.

A quick look at the groups:

A) World champion Dick Jaspers was never in danger, and yesterday’s lucky loser Can Capak did well (two wins, 1.707) to finish second. Sörensen and Teran are out.

B) Piedrabuena remains undefeated and wins the group. Zanetti second, Nguyen and Nelin don’t make it.

C) Former and multi world champions Sánchez and Blomdahl fight off the challenge from Patino and Gonzalez.

D) Three players with two wins in this flight. J.I. Kang is the unlucky one with the lower average. Sayginer (2.016) and Q.C. Tran advance. M.J. Cha finishes fourth.

E) Two of the top Koreans both reach the last 16: a strong J.H. Heo (2.105) and a struggling H.J. Kim. Montes and Aveiga are out.

F) Major upsets in this group, where the two Belgians finish third and fourth. A splendid Sidhom (1.846) and Viersen star Catano book the tickets.

G) Bury (1.661) wins the group, M.W. Cho (1.407) is second, and Tasdemir (1.812) is third, Orak fourth.

H) More drama in group H, where average decides who finishes second behind C.B. Lee. Horn loses to S.W. Choi and comes up short by 1 carom. Coklu edges him 1.554 to 1.545.

Friday’s knock-out matches:

11.00 Heo - Catano

11.00 Bury – Capak

11.00 Piedrabuena – Blomdahl

11.00 Sidhom – Tran

13.30 Sánchez – M.W. Cho

13.30 Sayginer – H.J. Kim

13.30 C.B. Lee – Zanetti

13.30 Jaspers - Coklu

Tournament page

https://www.umb-carom.org/PG344L2/Union-Mondiale-de-Billard.aspx

Live stream and live results page

http://umb.cuesco.net/

You Tube Live stream :

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCim6RDHkn960qAquiglFeSg

Las Vegas , March 31st ,2022

Las Vegas is ready for the last 32

There’ s never a dull moment on the final day of qualifications in a World Cup, and Las Vegas 2022 was no exception. Wherever you looked, matches were decided 40-39 and people were calculating averages to see who would have the “ lucky loser” spots.

A quick look at the groups:

A) Good old Frank Torres and young Joey de Kok play well, but 2014 world champion Sung Won Choi is the group winner.

B) The strong Turkish contender Lütfi Cenet is eliminated, Viersen hero Huberney Catano takes first place.

C) Not Randers 2019 runner-up D.A.C. Nguyen but Turgay Orak advances.

D) Back from military service, Myung Woo Cho picks up where he left off.

E) In a thriller match, Luis Aveiga makes a comeback to eliminate Jun Tae Kim and Gökhan Salman.

F) Nguyen Quoc Nguyen is head and shoulders the best in group F.

G) Two Danish players with great reputations advance: Haack-Sörensen as group winner and Dion Nelin as lucky nr. 2.

H) Choong Bok Lee wins the strong and difficult flight H, ahead of Pedro Gonzalez ( qualified as lucky Nr. 1) and Robinson Morales.

I) An all-Korean flight, with outsider M.J. Cha edging W.Y. Choi and C.H. Seo.

J) A draw against T.H. Do Nguyen can’ t save Dutch coming man Jeffrey Jorissen. The “ strong man” Roland Forthomme advances.

K) Ankara stuntman J.J. Garcia and Sharm el Sheik star Peter Ceulemans both bow to J.I. Kang, formerly known as In Won Kang.

L) Can Antonio Montes repeat his Veghel 2019 performance? He’ s in the main draw, that’ s a good start. Can Capac is qualified as lucky Nr. 3

The seeds and wildcards will join these winners tomorrow, to make up the main draw.

UMB.

Tournament page

https://www.umb-carom.org/PG344L2/Union-Mondiale-de-Billard.aspx

Live stream and live results

http://umb.cuesco.net/

You Tube Live stream :https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCim6RDHkn960qAquiglFeSg

Las Vegas, March 26th 2022

The World Cup returns to Las Vegas, after 19 years.

The last World Cup on the American continent was held in Medellin, Colombia in 2013. Nineteen years ago, in 2003, it was the last time a World Cup was held in the USA. That was also in Las Vegas, Nevada. Semih Sayginer was the winner back then.

It’s good news for billiards to have a prestigious tournament in this hemisphere. After all, we are a global sport. And let’s not forget: the roots of the 3-cushion game lie in the United States.

The Rio all-suite Hotel and Casino will be the venue for this event, the 189^th World Cup in our history. As usual, the top 14 ranked players in the world have been seeded. Here they are, in order of ranking: Jaspers, Zanetti, Sánchez, Tran, H.J. Kim, Merckx, Tasdemir, Horn, Coklu, Bury, Sidhom, J.H. Heo, Sayginer, Blomdahl.

The UMB / CPB wildcard was given to Javier Teran of Ecuador, the two organizer wildcards went to Pedro Piedrabuena and Hugo Patiño of the USA.

What’s at stake?