3-Cushion
SEOUL - The Korean three-cushion world champion, Sung-Won Choi, is the new world's number one on the ranking. He's the first Korean player who tops the ranking. The UMB (world federation) has revised the scoring system as of January 1, 2015. Therefore, the Belgian Eddy Merckx lost his leading position because of his second place at the Belgian championship. Sung-Won Choi has a total of 321 points, Eddy Merckx has 313 points now with his eighteen points for the silver medal at the Belgians, where he lost his thirty points of last year's title.
Sung-Won Choi's score is expected to increase this month at the Asian Championships. Two years ago, the world champion took out a minimum score of eight points. The points to earn at the federation championship are 80, 54, 38, 26 etc.
The first World Cup in 2015, where Choi is the first seeded player is in Luxor, Egypt.
Sung-Won Choi is also one of the candidates for the 'Player of the Year trophy' and will play the match against Frédéric Caudron on Saturday, February 21 at the Hilton Hotel in Antwerp, for the contest between the world champion and the winner of the World Cup in 2014.
The main contenders for the title 'Player of the Year' are Sung-Won Choi, Eddy Merckx, Frédéric Caudron, Torbjörn Blomdahl, Marco Zanetti, Dick Jaspers and Jae Ho Cho.
The new world ranking (top twenty):
1 Sung-Won Choi 321 points
2 Eddy Merckx 313
3 Frédéric Caudron 291
4 Torbjörn Blomdahl 277
5 Marco Zanetti 270
6 Dick Jaspers 226
7 Jae Ho Cho 218
8 Kyung-Roul Kim 206
9 Tayfun Tasdemir 197
10 Dong Koong Kang 187
11 Jean Paul de Bruijn 167
12 Quyet Chien Tran 163
13 Dani Sánchez 162
14 Roland Forthomme 157
15 Sameh Sidhom 138
16 Choong-Bok Lee 137
17 Filipos Kasidokostas 132
18 Murat Naci Coklu 130
19 Quoc Nguyen Nguyen 127
20 Nikos Polychronopoulos 123.