The three- cushion world cup in 1988/2 was the second world cup tournament in the third year of the three-cushion world cup. It took place from 11 to 13 November 1988 in this discipline of carom billiards in Antwerp .
For the first time in the short history of the World Cup, two players from one country were in the final. In a great final, Nobuaki Kobayashi prevailed after a 2-2 set deficit after a big fight with 3-2 sets against his compatriot Jun'ichi Komori . Antwerp is a good tournament location for Kobayashi anyway. In 1974 he won his first world title against the seemingly unbeatable Raymond Ceulemans . The small final for third place was secured by world number one Torbjörn Blomdahl with a new general average record (GD) of 1.891 which was also a new world record. Another new world record was Kobayashi's best individual average (BED) with 2.812 . The fair audience gave both finalists a standing ovation and was followed by millions of television viewers worldwide in Europe, South America and Japan.
The tournament was played with 16 participants. The whole tournament was played in the KO system with three sets of 15 points each.
The first four of the world rankings (in this case Torbjörn Blomdahl, Jun'ichi Komori, Raymond Ceulemans and Nobuaki Kobayashi) were seeded for the second round.
If a set was completed at 15 points by player one, player two had no follow-up kick .
Final round
The tournament tree for the final round is listed below. Legend: SP / Pkt. / Aufn. / ED / HS
The three-cushion World Cup was organized by the founding association, the " Billiards Worldcup Association " (BWA) until 1998 . Disputes between the BWA and the world association Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) led to parallel tournaments between 1994 and 1997. The UMB / BWA organized the tournament together until the beginning of 1999. Since the dissolution of the BWA in 1999, the UMB has been the sole organizer. From 1988-1991 the UMB did not host any world championships. During this time, the annual overall winner of the World Cup was crowned world champion.