MANILA - It’s a bright and promising day for the Filipino campaigners as all four who saw action in the first day successfully hurdled separate assignments to make it to the Round-of-64 in the 2007 World Pool Championship at the Araneta Coliseum.
Defending champion Ronato Alcano and 1999 titlist Efren “Bata” Reyes led the cast in the opening day of the prestigious annual WPC, which at least sent a serious signal of their title bid.
Aside from Alcano and Reyes, the others were newcomer Joven Bustamante and Antonio Gabica, a gold medalist in the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.
The 35-year-old Alcano played wiser and didn’t rely merely on tricks and skills as he opted for a hard break instead of his usual soft break to beat Germany’s Harald Stolka, 9-1, for his second win to gain entry into the next round.
Reyes, the man often called “The Magician” for making some spectacular shots ever seen in the tournament, survived an opening match setback by winning the next two matches to follow Alcano into the next round.
The 53-year-old Reyes, opened his campaign with a surprising 2-9 setback to Japan’s newcomer Kenichi Ichigaki in table 1, but bounced back by beating Lui Chun-Chuan of Chinese-Taipei, 9-7. Reyes eliminated Tomasz Kaplan of Poland, 9-4, to secure his second win.
Only two wins are needed to make it to the next round under the new tournament format, which does not call for a round-robin play from among the eight players in each of the 16 groups.
Early in the day, Alcano displayed enough familiarity of the condition of the arena as he easily whipped Saeed Ahmed Al-Mutawa of the United Arab Emirates, 9-3.
Conditions
“In the first two racks, I was carefully studying the surface of the table and I found out that the cue ball is not equally leveled with the rest. So I decided to play hard break and it paid off. The soft break will not be effective in this kind of condition,” said Alcano.
In his second match, Alcano played aggressively all throughout, even leading 6-0 over Stolka, but a dry break in the seventh rack allowed his opponent to score, 1-6.
However, Stolka faltered in the next break, paving the way for the Filipino champion to end the match in two hours and 25 minutes.
Alcano said the player who can adjust easily to the conditions of the venue and familiarize themselves fast with their opponent can win the match.
“I hope, this is a good sign,” said Alcano.
Joven, a distant relative of Francisco “Django,” Bustamante proved stronger when he survived a close 9-8 win over Ibrahim Bin Amir of Malaysia, then went on to beat Jonni Fulcher of Scotland, 9-7, to take a three-day rest until the knockout round-of-64 starts on Tuesday.
The fourth Filipino bet to join Reyes, Alcano and Bustamante was 35-year-old Cebuano “Gaga” Gabica, who eliminated Ibrahim Bin Amir of Malaysia, 9-6. His second win came after losing to Lu Hui-Chan, 3-9, in the second match. (FCC)
