Exclusive: Hjorleifson's First Update from the World Championship

Greetings everyone from Qatar; it's been a long first few days over here. After my 20 hour door to door journey, I arrived in Qatar to find that my bags had been lost in transit. I had hope that they would show up before my match began, however by 6 o'clock yesterday I realized that I would have to go out and buy some new clothes.

On this journey I found out that in Qatar I am a size 47 shoe,of which there were only about six pairs in the whole six story super mall that I went to. A size 38 waist, 2 sizes bigger than in North America and an XXL shirt, also which there were very few of. Second on the unexpected list was finding a cue to play with. I was lucky to find a good quality Joss butt and a WD700 Mezz shaft, which played pretty similar to my normal equipment but was obviously something I did not expect to have to deal with. Fortunately my bags arrived a couple of hours after my first match today so I will be spoiled in comparison for the remainder of the tournament.

Life is always going to throw you curve balls and the important thing is dealing with it the best you can. I'm proud to say that given the circumstances, I gave myself the best possible chance to win my match and I will be moving forward with the same attitude for the rest of the week. The venue for the the 2014 championships is second to none. I believe this is the 4th year that the event has been held at the Al Sadd Sports Club in Qatar. The venue is one of the best I have had the privilege of playing in. The playing area and equipment can be described as follows:

• 14 9 foot Wiraka tables
• Simonis 860 cloth
• Super Aramith TV style balls with Measle cue balls
• 20 foot spacing on all sides of every table
• Well trained referees at each table
• Electronic scoreboards with streaming cameras

Needless to say the event has been very well organized and in my opinion the tables are playing great. There are no issues with leveling and the four inch pockets that they have implemented are, I believe, the perfect size for professional competition. So far the event has not been kind to the Canadian contingent as John Morra lost 9-6 to a very strong lesser known player from South America named Jalal Yousef. I lost to a very good player from Taiwan named Cheng Yu Hsuan, who broke and ran out five racks, and Jason Klatt lost 9-8 to Dennis Orcollo. Mario Morra and Alex Pagulayan will play their first round matches tomorrow against Artem Koshovoy (UKR) and Naoyuki Ohi. The three Canadians on the one loss side will play their matches tomorrow and I can assure you that we are not giving up! Thanks for all the support and hopefully I will be able to get back to you with some good news tomorrow.