The professional tennis PBA officially announced the list of players remaining on the first part of the 24-25 season on the 28th.
The list was based on the number of players within the top 60 in the 23-24 season. Among them, four players from overseas who ranked at the bottom of the list were seeded by continents and survived. A total of 64 players were listed in the first part of the tour.
This season, the PBA's first-part tour will be based on ranking points after each season. It is possible to stay up to the top 50% (60th) based on the point ranking, and from the 61st place or lower, it must go directly to the PBA Q school and fight for survival again.
Top 10 powerhouses such as Jo Jae-ho (NH Nonghyup Card), who won the grand prize by winning the 7th Tour (High1 Resort Championship) and SK Rent-a-Car Jeju Special Self-Governing Province World Championship in the 23-24 season, Javier Palazon (Spain, Huons), Semi Signer (Turkiye, Huons), and David Martinez (Spain, Crown Haitai), remained healthy.
Veteran team leaders, who faced a dizzying situation last season when they fell to Q School, also made a bold grade rebound this season, and most of them entered the "safety zone."
Um Sang-pil (Blue One Resort) survived by ranking 19th this season, while Seo Hyun-min (Welcome Savings Bank) was ranked 27th. Kim Byung-ho (Hana Card), who won two championships for the first time in team league history, will also remain in the first part of the tour and lead the team.
On the other hand, there are some team league players who failed in the first part of the tour. First, Kim Haeng-jik's younger brother Kim Tae-gwan (Crown Haitai) was eliminated from the first part of the tour, ranking 94th. Huons Kim Bong-cheol, Welcome Savings Bank Kim Im-kwon, and NH Nonghyup Card Oh Sung-wook were also eliminated, ranking 75th, 61st, and 83rd, respectively.
Lee Choong-bok (118th), the unlucky leader who has never crossed the 128-round wall throughout the season, will eventually head to the cue school due to an early defeat.
Whether he will pass the round of 128 has been one of the first-ever concerns throughout the 23-24 season.
Along with "Korean 3 Cushion Legend" Choi Sung-won and "Mr. Magic" semi-signer (Huons), Daniel Sanchez (Spain, SY), Korea's first and last Asian Games gold medalist Hwang Deuk-hee (SY) have all passed the preliminary round more than once.
Lee Choong-bok was at the bottom of the league all season because he did not exceed the round of 128, so the luck of qualifying matches for each tour was not good either.
Sanchez, who came over with the honor of the "four great kings," also failed to adapt to the PBA due to his late adaptation, and most of them were eliminated from the 128-64 round, and although his best performance is in the round of 32, he barely survived with Giancar Park (Turkiye, Blue One Resort), Ivan Mayor (Spain), and Hideaki Kobayashi (Japan) after being seeded by each continent.
As some Korean team leaguers are eliminated from the first part of the tour, the composition of team league members in the 24-25 season is expected to change to some extent.
Meanwhile, the PBA Tour is scheduled to begin preparations for the 24-25 season, including the draft, from May.
BY: 토토사이트링크