MANILA, Philippines—After bucking opening match jitters unusual for players of their caliber, the charismatic Philippines A team of Efren “Bata” Reyes and Django Bustamante Tuesday night steamrolled its way past Thailand, 8-3, to advance to the second round of the PartyPoker.com World Cup of Pool at the Robinson’s Mall in Ermita.
Reyes-Bustamante, the defending champion that had a throng cheering every good shot, yielded the first two frames but went on to win eight of the last nine, a streak snapped only when Reyes’ break of the eighth frame was ruled illegal after no three balls cleared the head string.
The victory also enabled the enduring tandem to avenge a loss to the same Thai pair of Nitiwat Kanjanasri and Surathep Phoochalam in the quarterfinals of the 9-Ball event of the 2007 Southeast Asian Games in Nakhorn, Ratchasima, in Thailand.
“I think we would still be nervous on Thursday (in the second round). Being nervous in front of our countrymen is normal,” Reyes told reporters in Filipino shortly after the match.
“Especially if we are down early,” Bustamante followed up. “We may be nervous, but we always try our best. Doubles is a different event.”
The Thais were simply not in the class of Reyes-Bustamante once the Filipinos got their rhythm. The Hall-of-Fame pair next clashes with the Indonesian pair of Muhammad Zulkifli- Ricky Yang, which came back from a 0-5 deficit to win over India’s Dharminder Singh Lilly and Raj Hundal, 8-7, in one of the earlier matches.
Roberto Gomez and Dennis Orcollo of Philippines B, ranked third here, makes its debut Wednesday against Croatia’s Karlo Dalmatin and Philipp Stojanovic in the featured match that will start 6 p.m. at the earliest.
Reyes-Bustamante, despite winning, was clearly not in its best elements, as Bustamante broke dry four times, with Reyes bailing out the duo each time.
“It’s a good thing that my partner is a really great player,” Bustamante said of Reyes. “Before coming into the match, we agreed that I was the better breaker, and that I would have won some frames for us because of my break.”
The fifth-seeded German pair of Ralf Souquet and Oliver Ortmann also advanced after bundling out Hong Kong’s Lee Chenman and Kenny Kwok, 8-4. Germany could meet Philippines A in the semifinals.
Italy’s Fabio Petroni and Bruno Muratore, the ninth-seeded team in this $250,000 event, almost blew a 6-4 lead before showing the ladies Korean team of Yu Ram-cha and Ga Young-kim the door, 8-6.
The Italians thus advanced to the second round opposite China’s eighth-seeded team of Fu Jianbo and Li Hewen, which made short work of the Belgian tandem of Serge Das and Noel Bruynooghe, 8-2.
Russia also got its campaign off on the right foot and posted the first upset of the 32-team tournament with an 8-4 decision of 12th-ranked Canada with Konstantin Stepanov and Rusian Chinakhov to clash with rock-solid Germany next.
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