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It was 3-cushion Billiards Week in New York in Flushing from July 20th to July 27th as the top 3-cushion billiard 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.
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 Duek-Hee Hwang, two younger Ceulemans, Denmark’s dangerous Allan Jensen, as well as Francisco Parra, a New York top local. Parra’s one point loss to the young Peter Ceulemans kept him from advancing and enabled Peter’s uncle, Kurt Ceulemans (son of the great legend), to move ahead. The group’s seed Heo also emerged victorious and advanced.
In Group “C”, Korea’s talented Dong-Kong Kang swept his field 6-0 to secure the 1st spot, and the second spot was taken by Bahattin Gündo?du. Fans were delighted to discover that Baha is not only a talented 3-cushion player but also a celebrity entertainer and recording artist in Turkey with numerous “YouTube” music videos. Some fans of Semih Sayginer speculated that showmanship is in the Turkish temperament. Many fans were also impressed by Bora Jeong, a talented women’s 9-ball player who entered the event at the encouragement of her playing coach.
The 2008 US National Champion, Miguel Torres, prevailed in Group “D,” falling to no one, although he was given a bit of trouble by the 2nd place finisher, Robert Raiford from Florida, who came within 5 points of a win against Torres. After Raiford advanced to the Semifinal round-robin, he took down a number of top European players.
The random draw pitted the two top-ranked Turkish players against each other in Group “E”. Tayfun Tasdemir sprinted ahead of the field to cinch the first spot. The other Turkish favorite, Murat Naci Coklu, advanced to the second spot by points-criteria, tied in win-loss record of 4/2 with Bert van Manen (Netherlands). But van Manen had fallen hard to Coklu 6 points to 30 in their match allowing a wide berth.
In Group “F”, the Austrian champion Andreas Efler never lost his grip on the first spot. Ira Lee, from New York, lost to Efler in the first round 30-16 but prevailed in a few close matches against the rest of the field to finish with a 5/1 record assuring him the 2nd position.
Javier Terán, the 3-time Ecuadorian National Champion who was the seed for Group “G” dominated his field with a perfect record of 6/0. The second spot was secured by Heung-Sik Lee, the playing coach for the South Korean “team” with a record of 5/1, with his one loss to Terán.
The 2006 US National Champion, Mazin Shooni, was one of only two Qualification round seeds that was unable to capture the 1st spot in their group but he qualified for the 2nd spot. The Group “H” number one spot was stolen from Shooni by Santiago Carmona of Colombia, who breezed through his flight undefeated.
Group “I” was another flight in which the seeded player, Jeremy Bury (France), did not sweep the field. Jae-Ho Cho, the 27-year-old talent and 13th ranked national champion of Korea, took first place with an almost perfect record falling short by only 3 points to Bury, who settled for the 2nd spot.