The defending champions were the Swedes who managed a hat trick for the first time in the history of this tournament . Torbjörn Blomdahl and Michael Nilsson played in the final against Tonny Carlsen and Brian Knudsen from Denmark. Blomdahl pulled away in just 4 shots in the first two sets of his final game against Carlsen . In the third movement he took 13 shots, but was never endangered. In the end, Carlsen only got 10 points (15: 2, 15: 4, 15: 4) and commented on this with the words:
"If the Swedes play like that, you have no chance"
That brought the Northern Scandinavians a good cushion of points. The game Nilsson / Knudsen was canceled in the third set, at 6: 8 (set 1: 15:14, set 2: 15: 4). The Swedes were unmatchable in front on points and secured their third title in a row. Torbjörn's father Lennart played in the second Swedish team , with whom he had already won the 1987 World Cup in Madrid and 1991 in Viersen. Overall, it was the fifth title for Blomdahl Junior.
In the semifinals, the Danes had defeated the first team from Germany and relegated to third place. Despite a 11: 6 lead in the second set, Christian Rudolph had no chance in his game against Carlsen. In the end it was 3-0 for the man from southern Scandinavia (15: 9, 15:13, 15:11. Martin Horn's 3: 1 win didn't help either (15: 8, 15:10, 7th) : 15 and 15:10), the Danes had the better points account. In the second semi-final, the Dutch had to compete against the eventual tournament winner. In the game of the two individual world champions Dick Jaspers / Torbjörn Blomdahl, it was as expected over the full distance of five sets Player won two sets, the fifth set was canceled when Jaspers had a score of 12: 8. Nilsson had already played his game against Raimond Burgman 3: 2 (12:15, 11:15, 15:14, 15: 2 and 15: 8) won, so the Swedes could no longer be overtaken.
The best sets of the tournament were played by the Greek Nikos Polychronopoulos against Jens Eggers from Germany and the Portuguese Rui Manuel Costa against Mazin Shooni from the USA each 15: 0 in 2 shots ( BSD 7,500). Costa also had the best series of 15 balls in this game , i.e. H. the first recording without points and identified in the second recording.
Game mode
If the tournament is played with 24 teams and fewer teams register, B-teams will be admitted. These are awarded as follows:
The game was played on four match billiards in Viersen. Each team consisted of two players. The best eight nations in the world rankings were seeded and went straight to the main round. The eleven other nations plus the second team of the defending champions Sweden competed against each other in groups of three in the preliminary round. The group leaders continue to play in the main round.
It was played on points in the set system - in the group phase "Best of 3" in groups of three teams, from the quarter-finals "Best of 5". No 3rd place has been played since 2004. So there were 2 bronze medals. The shot clock was set to 40 seconds, with the possibility for each player to take a time-out of 40 seconds per game. In the event of a tie, the following shall apply:
Sweden
Denmark
Netherlands Germany
Belgium
Japan
Spain
Turkey
