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Vietnam, they say, is the most optimistic country in the world. At times, Quyet Chien Tran needed that quality. He went through the eye of the needle once or twice, but at the end of the day, he held his third World Cup trophy. For Sameh Sidhom, there was a third career silver medal. 

All is well that ends well. The year 2023 ended on a high note for Dick Jaspers because he added yet another World Cup win to his impressive resume (his 29^th) and he won the Overall World Cup for the 2023 season, his eighth overall win. 

Today the prestigious Lausanne Billard Masters ended in the world capital of sport in the Helvetic city.

Therese Klompenhouwer was the winner of the main Women’s Competition!

This year’s LBM also had the iconic Artistic Billiards as an exhibition sport where Marvin Heinrich was the winner!

Daniela Romiti won and with this, she will always be the holder of the first 5-Pins Women’s World Championships.

Hall in Tirol the place, on November 12, 2023, the date, an enthusiastic public celebrated and cheered the Italian player who beat her compatriot Cristina Pulcini 3-1, who accumulated great tension during the competition and whose happiness shone with her silver medalist, Charlotte Koefoed from Denmark and Lucía Bionlillo from Italy completed a podium that would go down in billiard history.

Italy is at the top of the hill, the defender is the World Champion in Hall in Tirol after defeating Uruguay’s magnificent finalist that repeat also their championship in Lugano.

How do you defeat Eddy Merckx in a World Cup final? Even the greatest talent on the planet couldn’t do it today: Myung Woo Cho lost 50-43 in 21/20. The only player who knows is Dani Sánchez, who did it in Hurghada in 2008. Merckx was in fourteen finals in his life, including this one in Seoul.  

He may be fourth on the world ranking list after “Veghel”, but in the eyes of many, Dick Jaspers is still the best player in the world. After a somewhat disappointing season, the Dutchman re-established himself with a superior display in the fourth World Cup of 2023. Martin Horn got beaten in a one-sided final of great quality: 50-22 in 12 (!) innings. It was the best World Cup final ever to 50 points. 

The fourth World Cup of 2023 will be played in Veghel, the Netherlands, from 22-28 October. The small city in the South of the country has also hosted World Cups in 2022, 2021 and 2019, with Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dani Sánchez and Haeng Jik Kim as the winners. For many years, Veghel was home to the Dutch 3-cushion championship, known as “The Masters”. There’s always an appreciative crowd in the old industrial building “De Koekbouw”, and the 148 player slots are easily filled. 

The EXPO of Calangianus was ready this morning to show the final stage of this amazing competition.

In the morning session the two semifinals were planned.

On the main TV table the all-Italian team of Marco Zanetti and Michelangelo Aniello faced Luc Tran Thanh (Viet Nam) and Daniel Lopez (Italy). Zanetti made immediately clear his intentions scoring the 25 points of the carom fraction in only 6 innings, his opponent could only score 11 points. Consequently the road to the victory for Aniello in the 5-pins fraction was cleared. The final score was 200-154 for the Italians.

After 11 years of not having a World Artistic Championship, the world has a new champion, and his name is David GONZALEZ from Mexico. He took the crown in his first appearance at a world championship with an overall average of 73,35%, which is not really far from the world record!

The World Championship for juniors is still firmly Korean territory, even after Burak Hashas won the title last year. With four titles for Haeng Jik Kim, one for Tae Kwan Kim and three for Myung Woo Cho, the Asian stronghold has dominated the junior event since 2007. 

Was she inspired by Phuong Vinh Bao, the surprising men’s world champion? Or maybe by her Korean colleagues, such as Myung Woo Cho and Haeng Jik Kim? Fact is, that Lee Shin Young established herself as a top player this week, winning the world title convincingly in a final against Japan’s Yuko Nishimoto: 30-18 in 26/25.