Verhoeven Open

Sang Lee International Open

It was founded in 2005 as the Sang Lee International Open, named after Sang Lee, a Korean American player whose goal was to spread his principles as a player and restore the popularity of carom billiards in the United States. One year after his death in 2004, his friend Ira Lee initiated the tournament in tribute to him. It was organized by the United States Billiard Association (USBA) as a member of the world federation Union Mondiale de Billard. The venue for the tournament is the Carom Café, which was founded by Sang Lee (not Ira Lee who is not related to Sang) and his friend Michael Kang, who was also one of the best players in the United States at that time.

Contrary to most other tournaments it was not played in the set system, but to a predetermined score. The structure of the tournament has been changed several times since 2005.

The inaugural event (2005) was won by Sweden's Torbjörn Blomdahl. The 2006 and 2007 editions were both dominated by Frédéric Caudron of Belgium.^[2][3] Roland Forthomme, also from Belgium, won it in 2008.^[4] The 2008 edition was the last time the event was named as Sang Lee International Open.

Verhoeven Open

After a four-year break, the tournament was relaunched in 2012 under the name Verhoeven Open Tournament (or short Verhoeven Open)^[1] by Cindy Lee, CEO of billiards-event organizer Dragon Promotions.^{[5][unreliable source?]}

In 2012, 20 players participated at the tournament. Winner was the local hero Pedro Piedrabuena, who beat Torbjörn Blomdahl from Sweden with 40:37 in the final. After a long pause of playing tournaments, the 75-year-old Belgian "Mr. 100 " Raymond Ceulemans was honors player of the tournament and could, after all, still occupy the seventh rank.^[6]

Men

More information Sang Lee International Open, Year ...

Sang Lee International Open
Year	Winner	GA	Runner up	GA	3. Place	GA	Ref.
2005	Torbjörn Blomdahl	2,006	Semih Saygıner	1,998	Dick Jaspers	1,907
2006	Frédéric Caudron	1,881	Torbjörn Blomdahl	1,851	Semih Saygıner	1,741
2007	Frédéric Caudron	1,774	Dani Sánchez	1,889	Semih Saygıner	1,615
2008	Roland Forthomme	1,829	Frédéric Caudron	1,958	Torbjörn Blomdahl	1,707
Verhoeven Open Tournament
Year	Winner	GA	Runner up	GA	3. Place	GA	Ref.
2012	Pedro Piedrabuena	1,592	Torbjörn Blomdahl	1,708	Roland Forthomme	1,658	[9]
2013	Frédéric Caudron	2,066	Eddy Merckx	1,886	Torbjörn Blomdahl	1,838	[10]
2014	Torbjörn Blomdahl	2,058	Eddy Merckx	1,941	Frédéric Caudron	1,927	[11]
2015	Dick Jaspers	2,097	Tayfun Taşdemir	1,715	Frédéric Caudron	1,931	[12]
2016	Jérémy Bury	1,542	Dick Jaspers	1,975	Eddy Merckx	1,775	[13]
2017	Cho Jae-ho	1,650	Eddy Leppens	1,897	Dani Sánchez	1,847	[14]
2018	Eddy Merckx	1,872	Dani Sánchez	1,937	Martin Horn	1,908
					Eddy Leppens	1,597
2019	Eddy Merckx	1,798	Torbjörn Blomdahl	1,777	Dani Sánchez	1,773

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Women

In 2013 for the first time a competition for women was held. It took place from July 14 to 16, right before the men's competition. Winner was world number one Therese Klompenhouwer from the Netherlands. She beat the four-time world champion Orie Hida from Japan 25:16 in 17 innings in the final. However Hida played the best individual average with 1,562. Klompenhouwer succeeded with 9 points in the best high run.^[15]

In 2015 the women's tournament was called Jennifer Shim International.^[16] The tournament was named in memory of the American elite player Jennifer Shim, who was shot on March 6, 2015, by her ex-boyfriend at the age of 41.^{[17][unreliable source?][18]}

More information Year, Winner ...

Year	Winner	GA	Runner up	GA	3. Place/ Semi Finalists	GA	Ref.
Verhoeven Open Tournament
2013	Therese Klompenhouwer	1,016	Orie Hida	0,850	Park Su-ah	0,631	[15]
Jennifer Shim International
2015	Therese Klompenhouwer	1,123	Pheavy Srong	0,662	Orie Hida	0,970	[19][20]
2017	Therese Klompenhouwer	1,116	Orie Hida	1,035	Lee Mi-rae	0,648	[21]
2019	Han Ji-eun	0,863	Therese Klompenhouwer	1,195	Orie Hida	0,780	[22]
					Yuko Nishimoto	0,754

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