The three- cushion world cup 1996/8 was the fourth BWA world cup tournament in the eleventh year of the three-cushion world cup. The tournament took place from December 19 to 22, 1996 in this discipline of carom billiards in Istanbul . It was the fifth three-cushion World Cup tournament in Turkey.
The final world cup tournament of the BWA in Istanbul started with a shock for the many Turkish spectators. National billiard hero Semih Saygıner lost in the first round against the young Greek Nikos Polychronopoulos, who was completely unknown in the World Cup, with 0: 3 sets. After qualifying with 91 participants, including an extremely large number of Turks, only one Turkish player, Fehmi Erdurmaz, made it to the round of 16. Torbjörn Blomdahl dominated the rest of the tournament . He only had to fight in his first game against the Dutchman Henk Habraken. After 1: 2 set deficit, he won sets four and five with 15: 2 and 15: 9 in four recordings each. In the further course of the tournament only the Dane Tonny Carlsen was able to win the first set in the final when he lost. In the 65th World Cup tournament, Blomdahl was able to clinch his 22nd victory and in the eleventh year of the World Cup achieved his sixth overall World Cup victory. With 204 points he was clearly ahead of Dick Jaspers with 121 and Marco Zanetti with 99 points.
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 World Cup tournament was played as an open tournament again. From a pre-qualification with a maximum of 124 participants, ten participants qualify for the 1/16 finals. The main tournament is played with 28 participants. The first four of the world rankings are set for the round of 16. In future, 20 participants are set. The participants are recruited from the 14 best players in the world rankings (as of September 1st of the current year) as well as two national and international wildcards. The whole tournament, with the exception of the small final, is played in the knockout system with three sets of 15 points each. (Press release by BWA.Ghent, January 8, 1994.)
From this year onwards, there was no qualifying tournament in Spa.
Final round
The tournament tree for the final round is listed below.
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.