After a good preparation, I was very self-confident when travelling to Taipei. In group 9, my first match against K. Yudharman from Indonesia was more difficult than I had hoped (5-3). The same day, I had to accept my first defeat against A. Tan (MAS) 2-5. After another bad night with only 4 hours sleep, I had to fight very fiercely on day two to beat P. Holtz who played in a Scottish kilt - 5-4. The man from Scotland played an almost perfect match and only lost due to his bad luck when determining the first player to break. In my second match on this day against current Junior World Champion V. Földes (HUN), I did not stand the slightest chance and lost 0-5 – in this match, I did not put a single ball. After another horror night, I managed to win the 5^th group match against M. Davis (USA) 5-2, but it became harder and harder to concentrate. This time, the jetlag turned out to be a real problem. In the second match of the day against R. Luat (PHI) who came through the qualification, I had a good start. When leading 2-0, I missed an easy 8 ball and finally had to be lucky to bring home a 5-4 success. With four wins in six matches on my counter, the fourth day started in our first round group. In some of the groups, 3 wins in 7 matches were sufficient to qualify for the main round, but our group was so balanced that 4 wins could also mean the 6^th rank. Because of my two clear defeats, I had to beat S. Davis (ENG). The match was played in a very defensive manner, but finally, I managed to win 5-3 and was qualified, as second of this group, for the main round.

The ranking determined that I, as number 35 of the first round had to play M. Chamat from Sweden who finished on rank 30 in the first round. At the beginning, I committed a few mistakes and later on, I could not catch up with these anymore (a break foul, three position mistakes, after ball-in-hand I missed the second ball, and I missed an easy combination on the 9 ball). After trailing 1-4, 3-4 and 3-7, I had a last chance. At 3-7, Chamat missed the 9 ball and I could come back to 6-7. After a very good break, only 5 balls remained on the table and I just had to let the cue ball roll onto the 1 ball to gain position on the 4 ball. Normally, this would have been a 100 % rack, but the table did not play the game. The cue ball broke out the course for some 2 cm and the target ball ended some 6 cm beside the pocket. However, I was still lucky to leave a difficult position and „Napoleon“ was forced to play a safety shot. From this safety position, I hit the 1 ball via two cushions as planned, but then the cue ball passed in the middle of two other balls, all across the table, and the cue ball fell. The Swede did not allow me to come back to the table and with this 6-9 defeat, I finished 33^rd. The many opportunities I missed at the beginning of the match were the reason for this unnecessary defeat and my early elimination.

I spent the remaining four days at the WC as a spectator and could assist to many a surprise. There was the excellent performance of qualifier M. Manalo (PHI), who eliminated the WC favourites C.S. Yang (TWN), F. Bustamante (PHI) and E. Reyes (PHI) and who only lost in the quarter-finals to M. Chamat. Then there was P.-W. Chang (TWN), who had a hard time to survive the first round, but then he also eliminated some of the top players (W. Kiamco, D. Orcollo, J. Archer). In the semi-finals, he was already trailing 1-6 against Chamat, but then he turned the match around and entered the final winning 11-9. The second player in the final was A. Pagulayan from the Philippines who now plays for Canada. After average performances in the first round and in the early stages of the KO round (a lucky 9-8 vs. A. Klasovic), the „Lion“ improved his game and ended in a trance state of mind. The quarter-final against F.-P. Chao was a real highlight. At 10-5, the Canadian seemed to be the winner, but the former World Champion fought his way back into the match and could equal at 10-10. After a too timid break from Chao, he played a push out, which turned out to become a safety battle. After some shots back and forth, Pagulayan decided to play a long rail shot and he managed to pot the ball. But then he missed the next position, but he managed to make the shot, a two rail shot. The remaining balls were easy for him, if you can ever say so in the quarter-final of a WC. He entered the semi-finals, being a bit lucky, but finally deserving it after this 11-10 thriller. Here, he defeated in a great and confident manner P.-C. Kuo (TWN) 11-10 who had earlier eliminated Strickland.