USA, Spain move to the last 16
In the last two games of the first round of the 2010 PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool, the Spanish duo of David Alcaide and Francisco Sanchez Ruiz defeated Vietnam 8-5, keeping hope alive for a second consecutive World Cup of Pool victory for Spain. Meanwhile, the 2008 winners Johnny Archer and Rodney Morris of Team USA defeated the Sweden in a edge-of-your-seat fight at 8-7.
“We were the favourites and played better,” said Archer. “The balls ran funnily in the second to last game as they missed twice and left us nothing on.”
The first game of the afternoon began with USA jumping quickly to 4-1 before conceding two balls to the Swedish duo of Marcus Chamat and Thomas Mehtala. At the halfway point, the game stood at 7-4, but the Swedes weren’t prepared to give up. Mehtala, in his television debut, nailed the difficult shot that set the game at 7-7. The American pair managed to sneak by and will move into the last 16.
“Every year I win the first match hill-hill; I think it’s been four out of five years where that’s happened so it’s nothing new,” said Morris. “I’m just glad we won but I thought we played better all the way and when we had a chance we took it. I wasn’t nervous as I knew we were playing well so it was just a matter of getting the opportunity.”
In the second match, the Spanish team was off to a rocky start, until the Vietnamese duo of Luong Chi Dung and Do Hoang Quan, made a couple of bad plays in middle section, inadvertently setting up Alcaide and 18-year-old Sanchez Ruiz for a series of easy shots which brought their score to seven. They teetered on the brink of the victory while Vietnam pushed spiritedly, but they eventually took the win at 8-5 and will move on to face Philippines B in the second round at Robinsons Place in Ermita, Manila, the Philippines.
As the host nation, the Philippines are allowed to field two of the 32 teams, for a total of 31 nations competing for the winning prize of $60,000, and intermediate prizes totalling a $250,000 purse. The eight games of the second round will be held over the weekend, between the 16 winning teams from round one: Russia, Indonesia, China, Italy, Germany, Philippines A, England, France, Japan, Poland, Taiwan, Philippines B, Holland, Finland, USA, and Spain.
Tags: