After passing on the no. 1 position in the WPA World Ranking to Thorsten Hohmann in October and after falling back as far as rank 4, I could pass him again in December. Thanks to my title in Japan last week I am now leading with a small margin before T. Hohmann, A. Pagulayan (CAN) and N. Feijen (NED) and terminate the year 2004, in spite of some drawbacks, as the Number One. With O. Ortmann (9) and T. Engert (10), two more German players are ranked among the Top 10 in the World.