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Congratulations to Roland Forthomme Champion of the
2008 Sang Lee International Open
It was “3-cushion Billiards Week in New York” in Flushing from July 20th to July 27th as the top 3-cushion billiard
Match dvds from Buy now! |
"A" Finalists
left to right:
Duek-Hee Hwang (KOR)
Dong-Koong Kang (KOR)
Matin Horn (GER)
Torbjorn Blomdahl (SWE)
Semih Sayginer (TUR)
Tayfun Tasdemir (TUR)
Roland Forthomme (BEL)
Frederic Caudron (BEL)
players of the world assembled for the 4th annual Sang Lee International Open. The talented field came to honor the memory of the great champion, Sang Chun Lee, 12-time US National Champion who passed away in 2004.
The tournament was played in a two-stage round-robin format that funneled into single-elimination games to decide the champion and the order of the top finishers. A total of 86 players competed for the $125,000 purse, which is the richest ever offered at a 3-cushion event on American soil.
During the players’ meeting held in the morning of Sunday July 20th, 77 players began the Qualification Rounds divided into eleven groups (lettered A through K) composed of 7 players each. These matches were played to 30 points. Eleven top players were seeded into each of these qualification groups including four US national champions, as well as champions from Turkey, Korea, Austria, and Ecuador: Michael Kang (USA), Jung-Han Heo (Korea), Dong-Koong Kang (Korea), Miguel Torres (USA), Tayfun Tasdemir (Turkey), Andreas Efler (Austria), Javier Terán (Ecuador), Mazin Shooni (USA), Jeremy Bury (France), Sonny Cho (USA), and Hugo Patiño (USA). The rest of the field was grouped by a random draw and subsequently led by chance to some groups being stronger than others. Only the top two finishers, based on winning record and points, were to advance from each group, along with the five best-performing 3rd place finishers. This process resulted in a total of 27 qualifiers.
Qualification Groups
Michael Kang dominated Group “A”, although the former Korean champion Ji-Soo An came two points shy of disrupting Kang’s undefeated run. Mauricio Aguilar, from Columbia, also breezed through the flight (falling only to Kang) to clinch the group’s 2nd spot with a 5/1 win-loss record.
Jung-Han Heo, the player ranked 7th in South Korea, was the seeded player in Group “B”. The random draw had set the stage for a fierce battle among the 9th ranked Korean Deuk-Hee Hwang, two younger Ceulemans... (Read More)