INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines?Playing with razor-sharp form for the second straight night, Taiwan became the first team to reach the PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool?s quarterfinal round after a thorough 8-2 whipping of Japan Thursday night at the Robinsons Place mall in Ermita.

Former world junior champion Ko Pin-yi and the methodical Chang Jung-lin turned a close match into a rout by winning the final five frames after Naoyuki Oi and Toru Kuribayashi had threatened at 2-3.

Taiwan, represented here by a totally new partnership after previous teams got no farther than the Final Eight, has dropped just a total of four racks in its first two matches and will go into the quarterfinals the clear favorite against either the United States or Poland.

Getting out of tight spots by using the jump shot with uncanny precision, this Taiwanese pair could achieve a first with another win and potentially explosive semifinal showdown with the Philippines B pair of Dennis Orcollo and Roberto Gomez.

The much-ballyhooed United States pair of Rodney Morris and Johnny Archer earlier went through the wringer before prevailing, 8-7, over Swedes Marcus Chamat and Thomas Mehtala in their first round duel.

The Americans, the second-ranked team in this 31-nation, $250,000 event, blew a 7-2 lead and were sitting as Chamat broke dry on the 15th and final rack. The US duo then clinched it by cleaning up the wide-open table.

Morris-Archer advanced opposite the dangerous Polish pair of Mariuz Skoneckzny and Radislaw Babica, 8-6 winners over Malta?s Tony Drago and Alex Borg, for a place in the quarterfinals at 6 p.m. on Friday.

Fourteenth-ranked Spain also took care of its first round assignment, with the veteran David Alcaide and Francisco Sanchez Ruiz posting an 8-4 rout of Vietnam?s Luong Chi Dung and Do Hoang Quan.

Niels Feijen and Huidji See of Holland, the sixth seed, made short work of Austria?s Mario He and former world ladies champion Jasmin Ouschan, 8-3, to move up against the 11th ranked Finnish tandem of Mika Immonen and Markus Juva.

Immonen-Juva ripped Singapore?s Chan Keng Kwang and Toh Lian Han, 8-2, duplicating the most lopsided win that the methodical Taiwanese team posted against Malaysia Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, Dennis Orcollo and Roberto Gomez, the second Philippine squad here, plunges into second round action also at around 7:30 p.m. Friday against Alcayde-Sanchez-Ruiz for a place in the Final Eight.

Orcollo-Gomez earlier topped an erratic Croatian team of Philipp Stojanovic and Karlo Dalmatin, 8-4, also Wednesday night in a game where the Filipinos almost paid dearly for using the soft break.

?We will just apply a little more force on our soft break,? Orcollo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Filipino, saying that he and Gomez are not ready to depart after a hectic preparation in the last three weeks.

?We weren?t just that lucky (in the first round with our break),? Gomez, second placer to Englishman Daryl Peach in the World 9-Ball championship three years ago, added, also in Filipino. ?But it will come.?