The three- cushion world cup 1988/4 was the 4th world cup tournament in the third year of the three-cushion world cup. It took place from December 2nd to 4th, 1988 in this discipline of carom billiards in Palma .
For the first time in its young history, a three-cushion World Cup tournament took place in Spain. On the Balearic holiday island, however, the services were rather average. Former world champion Avelino Rico from Spain caused the surprise of the round of 16. He eliminated the world number two Nobuaki Kobayashi with 3-0 sets. Ludo Dielis ensured the best tournament performance in the quarter-finals. He won against his compatriot Raymond Ceulemans with an average of 1.709 . In the semifinals, he finished one set in two shots. After the initial streak of seven, eight points followed to win the set. The tournament was won again by the Swede Torbjörn Blomdahl . In the semifinals and the final, however, there were narrow wins with 3-2 sets.
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 in the world rankings (in this case Torbjörn Blomdahl, Raymond Ceulemans, Richard Bitalis and Nobuaki Kobayashi) were seeded for the round of 16.
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 / Pkte / 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.