Pro9 - Europe's No.1 Pool Player Resource

The World Cup of Pool
The Newport Centre
Venue
The Newport Centre
1 Kingsway
Newport
South Wales
UK
NP20 1UH
Tel: 01633 656757
www.worldcupofpool.com

Tuesday-Sunday 22-27 August 2006

Day 5 Results.

USA cruised into the semi-finals to finally end the resistance of brave Hong Kong in the PartyPoker.com World Cup of Pool.

Hong Kong , dismissed as 150/1 outsiders before the tournament, had defeated seeded teams Sweden and Russia in earlier rounds but were thrashed 9-3 by America , the competitionâ€™s number three seeds.

Earl Strickland and Rodney Morris will now face Vietnam in Sunday afternoonâ€™s semi-final and will be confident of securing their spot in the first ever World Cup final.

Click on "Read More..." for the details.

â€œWe just stayed focused and didnâ€™t lose track of our goal and stayed ahead," said Morris.

â€œIt was very important to come out of the gate well to set the tone for the match and thatâ€™s what we did. If you get up but a couple of games in this format then you have a big advantage.

" Vietnam is the story of the tournament and theyâ€™re on a high with nothing to lose so they will come at us with full force.â€

The Hong Kong pair of Lee Chenman and Kong Man-ho will be delighted with the $5,000 each they take home as losing quarter-finalists.

In the second quarter-final of the evening, No.1 seeds the Philippines overcame a huge scare to make their way to a quarter final match up v Germany .

Their opponents, the Czech Republic , lead 6-4 at one stage but took their foot off the pedal to allow Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante to claim the glory.

In the second game of the evening Team Philippines were made to fight all the way but did enough to become the final team to reach the semi-finals.

The No.1 seeds raced into an early 3-0 lead against unseeded Czech Republic but then only won one of the next seven racks as the Czechs gained a 6-4 advantage.

However, the Filipino duo of Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante showed their mental strength to win the next five to clinch the win at 9-6 and set up a semi-final clash against Germany .

â€œThis was a scary match for us,â€ said Bustamante. â€œWe got 3-0 ahead then they came back and they beat us four times in a row then it was 5-4 and 6-4. But itâ€™s a race to nine and everybody can win. Itâ€™s very important that we played badly but still won - I broke four times and never had a shot.â€

Reyes added: â€œTomorrow we play Germany and they are good players and a very strong team so we need some luck.â€

Semi Finals â€“ Sunday Afternoon

USA v Vietnam
Philippines v Germany

33/1 outsiders Vietnam continued to upset the form book at the 2006 PartyPoker.com World Cup of Pool as they came from behind once again to oust favourites Italy and book a spot in Sundayâ€™s semi-final line-up where they face either USA or Hong Kong.

The Hanoi-based pairing of Thanh Nam Nguyen and Chi Dung Long have catapaulted themselves into the big league of international pool with a string of brave performances and their easy-going antics have made them a hot with Welsh audiences too.

The pair were ecstatic following their win and with a guaranteed US$8,000 each â€“ three times the national average wage - for reaching the semis, they had every reason to smile.

Following wins over Croatia , Holland and now Italy , the Vietnamese will be full of confidence for their semi-final match.

The Italian pairing of Fabio Petroni and Angelo Millauro were always in the match and did well to level things up at 7 all from 7-5 down and when they moved broke for the match at 8-7 they must have believed the win was theirs.

There was some tense safety play at the beginning of the 16th rack and both sides had opportunities to assert themselves but the risks always seemed to outweigh the rewards. It was the Viets who found the necessary opening to square things up.

The lag came into play once again for the Vietnamese as they broke off in their third consecutive hill-hill match.

A fantastic 7/1 combination under severe pressure from Nguyen gave them a great chance but a poor positional shot from Thanh piled more pressure on his partner.

He rose to the occasion though and made a tremendous table length shot to take out the 2 ball and from there the Vietnamese held their collective nerve to record another magnificent 9-8 victory.

Earlier Germany continued their march towards the PartyPoker.com World Cup of Pool final with a fine victory against fifth seeds Taiwan.

The German pairing of Thomas Engert and Oliver Ortmann secured a 9-4 success and will now meet either Philippines or the Czech Republic in the semi-final.

A delighted Engert said: â€œI felt more confident and more calm than I did yesterday when we played against Spain as we knew, on paper, that we are the better team. But today we knew that Taiwan have Yang, who is one of the best players in the world, and we had to play well.

â€œWe got our chances and took them but also got lucky when we missed a shot and they were in a bad position. I think we put them under pressure to go 5-2 ahead and they missed shots so we knew we had a chance to win.

â€œWhen you play against a really good team it doesnâ€™t matter how the game works as thatâ€™s your hardest match. In the first round (against Wales ) we only missed one shot and run out every game but itâ€™s not always like that.â€

THE STATS

The Prize Fund
Winners:	US$60,000 x 1
Runners Up:	US$30,000 x 1
Semi-Finalists:	US$16,000 x 2
Quarter-Finalists:	US$10,000 x 4
Last 16:	US$5,000 x 8
Last 32:	US$3,000 x 16
Total US$250,000 * All prize money is split between the two players.

The Teams
Canada	Luc Salvas & Tyler Edey
Croatia	Philipp Stovanovic & Ivan Kralj
Czech Republic	Roman Hybler & Michal Gavenciak
England A	Raj Hundal & Ronnie Oâ€™Sullivan
England B	Steve Davis & Daryl Peach
Finland	Mika Immonen & Markus Juva
Germany	Thomas Engert & Oliver Ortmann
Holland	Nick van den Berg & Niels Feijen
Hong Kong	Lee Chenman and Kong Man-Ho
Hungary	Vilmos Foldes & Gabor Solymosi
India	Dharminder Lilly and Alok Kumar
Indonesia	Imran Ibrahim and Ricky Yang
Ireland	Tommy Donlon & Paddy McLaughlin
Italy	Fabio Petroni & Angelo Millauro
Japan	Masaki Tanaka and Satoshi Kawabata
Korea	Jeong Young-hwa and Lee Gun-jae
Malaysia	Patrick Ooi Fook Yuen and Ibrahim Amir
Malta	Tony Drago and Alex Borg
Philippines	Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamante
Poland	Radoslaw Babica & Marius Roter
Qatar	Fahad Mohammadi and Bashar Hussain
Russia	Konstantin Stepanov & Konstantin Zolotilov
Scotland	Michael Valentine & Pat Holtz
Singapore	Chan Keng Kwang and Toh Lian Han
South Africa	David Anderson and Yulan Govender
Spain	David Alcaide & Rafael Guzman
Sweden	Marcus Chamat & Tom Storm
Taiwan	Wang Hung-hsiang and Yang Ching-shun
Thailand	Tepwin Arunnath and Amnuayporn Chotipong
USA	Earl Strickland and Rodney Morris
Vietnam	Thanh Nam Nguyen and Chi Dung Luong
Wales	Rob McKenna & Ben Davies

THE LAST 32
Canada	9 : 5	Thailand
Malaysia	9 : 3	Qatar
Czech Republic	9 : 6	Poland
Philippines	9 : 0	Malta
Taiwan	9 : 6	India
England "B"	9 : 6	Korea
Russia	9 : 3	Hungary
Hong Kong	9 : 8	Sweden
Japan	9 : 0	Indonesia (Walkover)
Spain	9 : 8	England "A"
USA	9 : 6	Singapore
Germany	9 : 2	Wales
Finland	9 : 5	Ireland
Italy	9 : 2	South Africa
Vietnam	9 : 8	Croatia
Holland	9 : 5	Scotland

THE LAST 16
Philippines	9 : 5	Malaysia
USA	9 : 3	England "B"
Taiwan	9 : 4	Japan
Hong Kong	9 : 8	Russia
Czech Republic	9 : 8	Canada
Italy	9 : 2	Finland
Germany	9 : 5	Spain
Vietnam	9 : 8	Holland

THE QUARTER-FINALS
Germany	9 : 4	Taiwan
Vietnam	9 : 8	Italy
USA	9 : 3	Hong Kong
Philippines	9 : 6	Czech Republic

THE SEMI-FINALS
USA	- : -	Vietnam
Philippines	- : -	Germany

THE FINAL
---	- : -	---

Comments