For the first time ever, the top players in Korea took on the top players from the USA in the 1st Annual Dragon Promotions Korea vs USA. The event took place at the beautiful 5 star Busan Grand Hotel in Busan, Korea. The event is part of the Brunswick KPT Tour and filmed in its entirety by MBC ESPN.
Team USA consisted of veteran stars of team events which included the captain Johnny Archer, Mosconi Cup MVP Rodney Morris, 4x USA Mosconi Cup member Charlie Williams, and new rookie Tina Meraglio.
Team Korea consisted of captain Young Hwa Jeong, #1 KPT rank Seung Woo Ryu, multi-national champion Won Seok Kim, and Runner up of Korea International CHampionship Bora Jung.
The first matches started out badly for the Koreans as they put Jeong and Kim, who both are former teamates as the silver medalist at the Asian Games in doubles, to take on Archer and Morris. In the short races, Kim missed an easy 9 ball and later Jeong missed an easy 8 ball for the USA team to take the first match 3-0. But the KOreans struck back with Ryu and Jung who handled Williams and Meraglio 3-0. In the 4- on- 4 match up(where all 4 members of each team play position for each other), the USA stayed together for a 3-1 win to take the team score to 2-1 USA.
This set the tone for the singles where the USA has traditionally stayed dominant in international team events, and Korea proved no different as Archer beat Kim 4-1, Williams shut out Jeong 4-0, and Morris schooled youngster Ryu 4-1. But Jung stopped the US momentum with a bit of fortune as Meraglio scratched on the 8 ball at 3-3 making the score 5-2 USA. Meraglio was back again in the Man vs Woman match and she took on Ryu and won the first game, but couldnt stop him as he came back to win 3-1 to bring Korea back within reach 5-3.
Korea vs USA continues tomorrow for the final day with Woman vs Man match Jung vs Archer and then the two #1 players play with Korea #1 Ryu against USA #1 Archer. The first team to make 9 matches wins the Team Cup.
