Merckx wins in Guri: his eleventh World Cup.

Guri, November 10th 

Merckx wins in Guri: his eleventh World Cup.  

The world of 3-cushion has been full of surprises lately. In Guri, on the final day, there was an unsurprising result: Eddy Merckx won the last match and the tournament. It is by now an established fact that once the modest Belgian reaches a final, he is almost impossible to beat. Twelve finals, eleven wins, it is an astonishing record that will be as tough to break as his legendary world record match of 50 in 6.

Jeremy Bury, who had played an excellent tournament, could only watch as Merckx dominated their final from start to finish. The 40-16 in 16 inning result said it all: a one-way street. His equalizing inning (24 points needed) looked like a "mission impossible" anyway, but the Frenchman had been punched so hard that he missed the break shot. 

As in Veghel, where Antonio Montes had surprised the elite with a place in the semi’s, Guri had a newcomer on the last day: Jun Tae Kim. The 24-year-old impressed with wins over Nikos Polychronopoulos and Sung Won Choi.  

Tayfun Tasdemir started on Sunday with the role of tournament favorite, as a result of his wonderful play on Friday and Saturday. He ran a 19 and a 20 and looked on his way to a third World Cup victory. Bury, in his best match of the 2019 season, crushed that ambition in only 15 innings: 20-40. 

Eddy Merckx has had a shining 2019 so far. He won the Verhoeven Open in New York and the Survival event in Seoul, climbed to the 2^nd place on the world ranking after Guri, and now shares the lead for the overall world cup with Tayfun Tasdemir. The Belgian will be confident in his next events: the Lausanne Billiard Masters, the World Championship in Randers and the last World Cup in Egypt.  

Final ranking:

1.       Merckx 2.044 – 14
2.       Bury 1.640 – 12
3.       Tasdemir 2.018 – 20
4.       Kim 1.331 – 10
5.       Tran 1.843 – 11
6.       Sánchez 1.778 – 11
7.       Choi 1.560 – 10
8.       Heo 1.767 – 11

The new world ranking:

1.       Jaspers
2.       Merckx
3.       H.J. Kim
4.       Zanetti
5.       Bury
6.       Caudron (sus)
7.       Tasdemir
8.       Q.C. Tran
9.       Sayginer
10.       Sidhom

Guri, November 2nd 2019

The sixth World Cup in the 2019 series will take place about an hour from Seoul: the Guri tournament will kick off on 4 November. The final matches will be played on the 10^th.  

As usual, fourteen players have been seeded in this event: Jaspers, Zanetti, Tasdemir, Sayginer, Merckx, J.H. Cho, Q.C. Tran, Sidhom, Coklu, Bury, H.J. Kim, Horn, J.H. Heo and Blomdahl. The UMB wild card was given to Pedro Gonzalez from Colombia, the local wildcards went to Myung Woo Cho and Jung Pyo Hong.

In the qualification field, the Vietnamese even outnumber the Koreans: no fewer than 39 players from Vietnam will take the trip. The Turks also have a strong delegation, with Capak, Cenet, Kiraz, Alp, Goren, Orak, Salman and Degener as the best-known names that follow in Sayginer, Tasdemir and Coklu’s footsteps.

Guri 2019 will be the 17^th World Cup hosted by South Korea, the 5^th in Guri. The World Cup played in that city in 2015 still has the highest general average for the last 32 players: 1.787. We expect the early rounds to be strong as usual, given the broad and deep quality of Korean billiards.  

There have been five different winners so far in 2019: Tasdemir, Caudron, Palazon, Jaspers and H.J. Kim. Only two World Cups to go, and the race for the overall 2019 championship is wide open.

First prize in Guri is 16.000 Euro, there’s 10.000 for the runner-up.

All matches will be played on Hollywood Billiards, Simonis 300 Prestige Blue cloth, with Super Aramith Pro Cup Prestige balls. Kozoom will stream the entire event.