MANILA—Switzerland, which needed to go through qualifying just to make the main draw, pulled off an 8-4 shocker over defending champion China Tuesday as a string of upsets marked the start of the Partypoker.Net World Cup of Pool at The Block at SM North Edsa in Quezon City.
The tandem of Fil-Swiss Ronni Regli and Dimitri Jungo sent Fu Jianbo and Li Hewen packing just an hour into the tournament with an error-free performance that forged a last 16 duel with Sweden, an 8-7 winner over 16th seed Indonesia.
The Philippines has two teams in the tournament with the pair of Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante set to open their campaign last night against Kuwait’s Khaled Al Mutaira and Omar Al Shaheen.
The other Filipino duo of World Pool Masters runner-up Dennis Orcollo and Ronnie Alcano get going against Austria’s Jasmine Ouschan, the only female participant in the tournament, and Mario He.
Regli, returning to his mother’s country for the first time in 11 years, and Jungo, a former world junior champion, thrived under the Scotch Doubles format, racing to a 4-2 lead before moving on the hill on the 11th rack with a break-and-runout.
“It really didn’t matter which team we played,” said Regli. “It was just a dream of mine to play in a big event here in the Philippines. The last time I was here was 11 years ago but I’ve never played here before.”
It was a stunning defeat for the usually unflappable Chinese pair, which defeated Dennis Orcollo and Roberto Gomez in last year’s final in Manila and also made the semifinals two years ago.
The defeat was also a bitter pill for Fu, who also lost to Dennis Orcollo in the semifinals of the World Pool Masters just last Monday.
Li couldn’t put a decent safety shot on the yellow-1 on the 12th rack and Regli and Jungo cleaned up the rack to become the first team in the second round.
Sweden, represented by Marcus Chamat and Thomas Mehtala, needed to rally from 1-5 down against the Indonesian pair of Irsal Nasution and Riyan Setiawan to keep its title hopes alive in the $250,000 tournament.
Korea’s Lee Gun Jae and Hwang Yong also hammered out a reversal by eliminating the seeded Spanish pair of David Alcaide and Francisco Diaz Pizarro, 8-5.
In a match marked by several elementary errors from both teams, the Spanish pair couldn’t find a way back from 1-4 down and became the third seeded squad to get the boot.
Waiting for the Koreans in the next round is the Japanese pair of reigning World 9-ball champion Yukio Akagariyama and Lo Li-wen, which easily dispatched Croatia’s Carlo Dalmatin and Ivica Putnik.