Orcollo-Gomez breezes to semis vs Taiwanese

MANILA, Philippines - Dennis Orcollo and Robert Gomez easily finished off their Finnish rivals last night, and the Philippines was among four nations left standing going into the final day of action in the World Cup of Pool 2010 at the Robinson’s Place Manila Midtown Wing.

Orcollo and Gomez, younger Filipino pool masters already considered forces to reckon with in world pool, enhanced their reputation on a 9-1 whitewashing of Mika Immonen and Markus Juva to join Taiwan, China and Germany in the Final Four.

Orcollo, ruler of the recent World Pool Master, and Gomez, runner-up in the 2007 World 9-Ball championship, sustained their winning ways, blowing past Immonen and Juva to make the race-to-semifinals versus Taiwanese Ko Pin-yi and Chang Jung-lin.

The seventh-ranked Taiwanese pair landed in the semis on a 9-5 drubbing of Poles Radoslaw Babica and Mariusz Skoneczny.

The Filipino tandem sets out for the semis riding the momentum of the most impressive victory in the quarterfinals. Their eight-rack rout of the Finns came after a pair of 8-4 wins over Croatia and Spain.

Orcollo and Gomez had another sterling show of brilliant pocketing, racing to an 8-0 lead before yielding a rack to the befuddled Finns.

“I reached the semis last year but lost. I’m hoping I can make it all the way to the championship this time,” said Orcollo.

One-time champion China and 2009 runner-up Germany ended the upset runs of Indonesia and France to set up an interesting semifinal confrontation.

The Chinese pair of Fu Jianbo and Li Hewen, the 2007 WCP rulers, made an amazing run of six straight racks from a 3-all deadlock for a 9-3 demolition of Indons Muhammad Zulfikri and Ricky Yang.

The German duo of Ralf Souquet and Oliver Ortmann, on the other hand, survived a thriller of a match versus Frenchmen Stephan Cohen and Francois Cottance, winning the last two racks for a 9-7 decision.

The Chinese and the Germans play at 1 p.m. today for a place in the finals and a crack at the $60,000 top prize in the pool classic featuring 42 crack teams from 41 nations.

In a nerve-wracking match greatly enjoyed by the local pool fans, the fifth-seeded Germans eventually pulled through after Cohen missed a pot on 4-ball into the middle pocket in the 16th rack.

The Germans easily ran out the six remaining balls on table, thus, getting a shot at a second straight finale in the annual tourney. The pair of Souquet and Thorsten Hohman placed second to Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante last year over at SM North EDSA.

“It was a tough one. It’s a race-to-nine winners break but it felt like alternate break,” said Souquet.

“It’s not as easy as it seems for outside spectators once you’re in the arena and feel the heat. The French team might be a little under-estimated but Stephan Cohen has won a world title and Francois Cottance is a very well known on the Euro Tour,” Souquet added.

“That was my worst match. I didn’t play that good and made a couple of mistakes. I’m glad I had a strong partner and that’s why we won,” said Ortmann.

Rock solid were the Chinese in their conquest of the Indons, who were tormentors of Reyes and Bustamante during the Round of 16.

Li jumped out of a snooker, slamming the 4-ball into the bottom left pocket as the Chinese broke a 3-3 deadlock and pulled away to win the match with plenty to spare.

Li and Fu took the last six racks, beating the Indons with sharp pots, great safeties and incredible caroms.

The Chinese won the lag and polished off the rack to get ahead onboard.

Excellent breaks had the Chinese making it 3-0 before the Indons finally got one rack and later on tied at 3-3.

But is was an all Chinese show from then on.