Breaks of the game: Philippines B brings down towering Croats
MANILA, Philippines—A talented Philippines B team got the lucky breaks it needed at the most crucial times Wednesday night to take an 8-4 victory over a hulking Croatian pair and barge into the second round of the PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool at the Robinson’s Place Mall in Ermita.
With the Croats committing at least seven unforced errors in the first 11 racks, the third-seeded pair of Dennis Orcollo and Roberto Gomez still managed to put its nose out front despite not playing the kind of game expected of them.
Unlike the other Philippine team of Efren “Bata” Reyes and Django Bustamante, the defending champion that debuted rather jittery on Tuesday, Orcollo-Gomez didn’t look nervous at all.
But while the Reyes-Bustamante pair used every drop of their legendary skills to eventually trample on their Thai foes, Philippines B needed some key breaks to get going.
The match was tied for the last time at 4-all after the Croats won two straight racks, before several missed opportunities got the Filipinos back on the table, with Orcollo and Gomez not wasting the chances.
Carlo Dalmatin, a 6-foot-3 model back in Croatia, failed to make it a 5-5 game after muffing an easy shot on the 6, his third miss on such a virtual freebie, as the Philippines took a 6-4 lead and never wavered from there.
Philippines B used the soft break all match and was not very successful at it, and this is something that this tandem would have to rethink as the tournament gets deeper and the level of competition higher.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we will take it,” Orcollo said in Filipino.
Next up for Philippines B will be the winner of the Spain versus Vietnam match scheduled at 3 p.m. today.
Daryl Peach and Karl Boyes, Englishmen who have won world championships individually, went through the proverbial eye of the needle against a lightly-regarded side before advancing to the second round.
Peach, the former 9-ball king, and Boyes, who won the 8-ball crown a couple of years back, scraped past Mohammad Al Bin Ali and Bashar Hussain of Qatar, 8-7, by winning the final two racks and averting what Peach said would have been his worst defeat ever.
“No disrespect to them (Qataris), but that would have been my worst defeat ever,” the bald-headed Peach, who won his world 9-ball title over Roberto Gomez in Manila, said.
“You set yourself goals and one of my goals coming here is not just to win the tournament but beat (Efren) Reyes and (Django) Bustamante in the semifinals.”
Peach and his buddy Boyes stayed on track towards that, but they will have to first contend with Frenchmen Stephan Cohen and Francois Cottance in the second round.
The French, the 13th seeds in this $250,000 event among 31 countries, topped the Australian duo of James Delahunty and Ricky Emery, 8-5, in a match littered with errors.
Reyes-Bustamante, the defending champion and top seed, after ripping that Thai pair of Kanjanasri and Surathep Phoochalam, 8-3, Tuesday night, returns to action Thursday against Muhammad Zulkifli and Ricky Yang of Indonesia for a place in the Final Eight.
“There will be no easy matches here,” Reyes said in Filipino as he and Bustamante try to win this event an unprecedented third time in its five years of existence.
Tony Drago, the burly and highly-popular player from Malta, still didn’t see an end to his woes in this tournament after taking a first round exit yet again with his partnership with Alex Borg taking a 6-8 loss at the hands of Poland.
Radoslaw Babica and 20-year-old Mariuz Skoneczny came from 2-4 down to turn back the quick-playing Drago and Borg, who missed some pretty elementary shots in the earlier racks to aid their downfall.
The Polish pair, ranked 16th here, advanced opposite the winner of the United States-Sweden match scheduled at 3 p.m. Thursday. Rodney Morris and veteran Johnny Archer will play for the United States.
Japan also advanced with the team of Naoyuki Oi and veteran Toru Koribayashi scoring an 8-7 defeat of the Slovenian tandem of Matjas Erkuli and Matej Sulek.
The Japanese’s next foes will be the winner of the rock-solid Taiwan versus Malaysia match going on at presstime. Taiwan, seeded seventh, sent Ko Pin-yi and Chang Jun-lin, while Malaysia is being represented by Ibrahim Bin Amir and Lee Poh Sun.
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