The Wellbang Championship, the 7th round of the Professional Billiards (PBA) Tour 2022-23 season, is now ‘Muju Gongsan’. This is because as of the 20th, on the third day, all the top candidates for the championship were eliminated. In this tournament, which has become the ‘grave of champions’ early on, who will occupy the ’empty mountain without an owner’?
A total of 14 champions, including Frederic Coudron (Belgium), who has won seven trophies, have stood at the top of the PBA tour tournaments until the last tournament. Of the 13 players excluding Shin Jeong-ju, who did not participate due to absence, nine players, including Kudron, were eliminated early in the first and second rounds by the 20th.
On the 19th, the second day of the tournament, Kudron lost 3-1 to MBC Sports Plus commentator Kim Hyeon-seok, who participated after receiving a ‘wild card’ as an invited player in the first round of the round of 128. It was a defeat that was hard to accept for Kudron, who had been on a ‘roller coaster’ in and out of the top and bottom ranks, including winning six competitions this season. Moreover, this is not the only time in his life that he has been broken down by someone he met for the first time in his life.
In the round of 128, the first round of the High1 Championship, the 5th tournament held in December last year, Kudron packed up his bag early after being caught by Kim Wook of ‘Unnamed’ after finishing the regular game 2-2 after a match.
Previously, in the round of 32 of the TS Shampoo Championship, the second tournament of the 2021-22 season, Kudron suffered a 0-3 loss to “Hacker,” who participated as an invited player. All three of them, including commentator Kim, were ‘strange strangers’ whom Kudron had encountered for the first time.
‘Rival’ Philippos Kasidokostas (Greece), who faced Kudron in the quarterfinals of the last tournament, also failed to cross the threshold of the round of 64 after losing to Jung Haechang on the same day. However, this was not the end of the shame of the champions who joined the PBA Tour ‘Winner’s Club’.
On the 20th, when the 64 match started, the ‘dropout situation’ poured out. David Martinez lost 1-3 to Lee Guk-seong, and Heiber Palazon (Spain), who won the first-ever no-set victory at the Crown Haetae Championship, the 4th round of the second season of the PBA Tour, also fell to Lim Tae-soo’s 0-3 victory. . 안전놀이터
Following this, David Zapata, who won three tours, including winning the World Championship in the 2020-21 season, also lost after a match against Park In-soo and packed his luggage. As a domestic champ, Kim Byeong-ho, who won the Welbang 2nd competition, the final match of the first year of the tour, fell victim to a match-up with commentator Kim Hyun-seok, and Oh Seong-wook, who reached the top of the tour for the first and last time in the opening game of the 2020-21 season. I accepted the bitter cup from Jeong Hae-chang.
Seo Hyun-min lost to Kang Min-goo 0-3. Kang Dong-gung lost to Seong-ho Kang 1-3 and lost the opportunity to challenge for a total of 3 wins on the tour in 19 months after winning the opening match of the 2021-22 season.
Excluding Shin Jeong-ju, who missed out on this tournament, only four members of the Winners Cup survived: Cho Jae-ho, Eddie Leppens (Belgium), Birol Yumaz (Turkey), and Ma Minh Cam (Vietnam). However, there is no guarantee that they will occupy the ‘house without an owner’.
This is because the match-up, which decided the winner after a tight balance, came out as many as 26 times in the first and second rounds. In particular, in the round of 64 on this day, 15 matches were decided by draw. Lim Jeong-wan, chairman of the competition committee, said, “The fact that there are a lot of matchups is proof that the level of power has been leveled. It is no longer special that the winners of this competition were eliminated one after another from the beginning. Now, no one can be sure of winning.”