The three- cushion world cup 1988/1 was the 1st world cup tournament in the third year of the three- cushion world cup. It took place from November 4th to 6th, 1988 in this discipline of carom billiards in Paris .
Torbjörn Blomdahl celebrated his second World Cup victory in a row . The new world number one defeated Dieter Müller from Berlin in the final with 3-0 sets. Blomdahl played a new record single average (BED) in World Cup tournaments of 2,142 . For Müller, the second place was the best World Cup result. The game for third place was played by the long-term competitors of the last 20 years Raymond Ceulemans and Nobuaki Kobayashi, which Ceulemans won with 3-1 sets. The Dane Karsten Lieberkind and the French Francis Connesson had earned the places for the seed list in 1988 at the Grand Prix in Spa, Belgium.
After the agreement between the UMB and the BWA, it was decided that the overall World Cup winner of the year can also carry the title of three-cushion world champion.
The exact price money could not be determined from the documents. However, as in all BWA World Cup tournaments, it was at least 100,000 DM.
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.