Though the billiards World Cup was held in a famed Red Sea touristic city, a closed playing area denied players and spectators alike a majestic sight. Amira El-Naqeeb reports from Hurghada For the eighth consecutive year Hurghada hosted the 9th Billiards World Cup held from 4 to10 December. The championship was organised by the Akhbar Al-Youm Institution, which renewed its contract to organise the tournament until 2014. Adnan Y��ksel of Turkey won the tournament, the last World Cup / Grand Prix of 2011. In the final he played against Jeremy Bury of France. The decision was taken in the fifth set with 15:4 in 9 innings for Y��ksel. In third place was Kyung-Roul Kim of South Korea followed by Eddy Leppens from Belgium. The event took place in the Sunrise Garden Beach Resort & Spa which is nestled between the unrivalled azure Red Sea and the Red Sea mountain range. But the tournament itself took place in a closed hall equipped especially to host the matches. Thus players and spectators were deprived of a glorious view. Representing 22 countries, 128 players came for the world cup of carom billiards, which is originally French and the overarching title of a family of billiards games generally played on cloth-covered, 5 by 10 feet (approximately 1.5 �óö 3 m) pocketless tables. Egypt participated with 19 players alongside competitors from Columbia, Spain, France, Turkey, South Korea, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Austria, Vietnam and Jordan. Over four days, 108 players participated in the preliminary rounds of the tournament to qualify for the final draw. Twelve managed to reach the final rounds, however, none of the Egyptian players qualified for the end game. The 12 players emerging from the qualifiers joined the 20 who were given byes by the International Federation for being internationally ranked in the game. Egyptian players Riad Nadi and Sameh Sidhom played in the final draw without needing to qualify, in accordance with the International Federation rules of the game, which state that any country being governed by the World Cup has the right to nominate internationally ranked players to play in the final draw. Sidhom, ranked 27th in the world, lost to Y��ksel. Sidhom had come first in the national championships this year, and finished 10th in the European Championship in Portugal 2011. "I started playing when I was three. My dad who is a veteran player, and an international referee used to put some balls on a regular table, where I would shoot them with a stick," Sidhom laughed. Sidhom started playing carom professionally in 2000. He said the importance of such an event is that it gave him and all the players the exposure needed to learn more techniques and develop their skills. "In such events I get to see some of the top class players, and how they play, and learn from them, which is a rare opportunity since we only have a few coaches, and they are not qualified to train the players to be amongst the top level internationally." John Claude Dupont, president of the Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB), said that this year's world cup carried more than one pleasant surprise for him: he saw more and more players reaching top class level. Second was that a strong player like Y��ksel won the World Cup this year for only the first time, proving his point. Dupont said the importance of the World Cups for the game is immense, since it gives the game the media exposure needed for people to know about it. "We are expanding. We have five to six World Cups every year in different locations and now we are trying to have one in Asia and one in South America, as we have more players joining the game from these two regions," he explained. Hurghada was from the beginning one of the fixed locations in the World Cup series. "Many players like to come to Hurghada because they can combine playing with a vacation. Many were skeptical about the security situation in Egypt, but when they came and saw that everything was the same, they were glad they took the decision," Dupont told Al-Ahram Weekly. The Egyptian Federation for Billiard Sports (EFBS) along with the Confederation European de Billiard (CEB) supervised the World Cup. Egypt is affiliated to the CEB because there is no African confederation for carom (for more information about carom log into www.UMB.org).www.UMB.org)./p According to Azza Khalil, general manager of festivals in the Egyptian Tourist Authority (ETA), this World Cup was very important to Egypt in general, and to Hurghada in particular "because the participants from all over the world come and visit, and thus promote Hurghada as a destination. As a result, the ETA has the sports events on top of their agenda due to its importance in affecting tourism." Concerning the situation of carom in Egypt, Sidhom said the game was not getting enough national attention as compared to the international level. The number of participants in the national champion ranges from 100 to 150 players from a total of around 500 players in Egypt. In comparison, South Korea has more than one million players, and Turkey around 50,000. "Although we have around 500 players, the people who participate are much less than the people who practice the sport, because there is no financial or moral incentive. This is not a popular game like football or basketball," Sidhom said. However, he continues, "the Egyptian Federation for Billiards (EFBS) is doing a good job, and organising such an event for eight years is evidence of that." Sidhom ranks himself as "a second level player" and to develop his skills he goes to training camps abroad. The EFBS is trying to support the players by sponsoring them in training camps, and by sending at least its top two players to represent Egypt abroad. "My ambition is to reach the top 10 worldwide in the carom," Sidhom said. "Then may be people will follow my footsteps, because when somebody finds the right trail, people will follow."
