World No. 1 Dennis Orcollo, defending champion Jundel Mazon and Carlo Biado continued their unbeaten run Friday and became the first Filipinos to enter the knockout stages of the Guinness World Series of Pool 10-Ball Challenge in Jakarta.
Orcollo made quick work of Indonesia’s Sumaryadi, 6-1, before besting Canada’s Adam Smith, 6-2.
The Filipino quickly established his superiority with a break and run out in the opening rack but the Canadian clawed back and kept pace with the WPA World No.1 and 8-Ball champion to tie the count at 2-2.
With the Filipino leading, 3-2, Smith’s loosely tucked-in shirt proved disastrous as it grazed the 8-ball while he was cueing up for the pink 4. The resulting foul was all that Orcollo needed to seal the deal, capitalizing on the mistake to clean up the table.
Orcollo never looked back as he rattled off three racks in a row to win.
“It’s important that you start well,” he said. “Any mistake can easily lead to a loss because it’s such a short game.”
Mazon, whose awesome break is a big feature of his game, also took care of business in impressive fashion with a methodical dismantling of his Indonesian rival Rico Herman, 6-0.
Biado ended the hopes of countryman Jeffrey De Luna with a nerve-wracking 6-5 win and then stunned German ace and former World 9-Ball champion Thorsten Hohmann with a come from behind 6-5 victory.
Warren Kiamco, who lost a 5-6 cliffhanger to Chinese Taipei’s Ko Pin-yi rebounded in the losers’ bracket with a 6-1 win over Indonesia’s Tejo Kusuma to stay alive.