MANILA, Philippines - Far from their vintage forms, pool legends Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante still proved good enough to dispose of unranked Kuwaiti rivals Omar Al Shaheen and Khaled Al Mutaira, 8-4, in the opening round of the 2011 World Cup of Pool at SM North EDSA Mall in Quezon City.
Reyes and Bustamante, who have won practically all major pool events including the WPC twice, bucked some lapses and eased into the second round versus the Indian pair of Raj Hundal and Amar Kang.
Day One of the six-day event turned out as day of shockers with Hundal and Kang stunning the 12th-seeded Finnish pair of Mikka Immonen and Petri Mekkonen, 8-7.
Other seeded teams crushed on opening day were No. 1 China, No. 8 Spain and No. 16 Indonesia.
Al Shaheen and Al Mutaira proved unskilled to upset the Filipinos with their shaky game.
But to their credit, the Kuwaitis fought the Filipinos to a 2-2 deadlock before fading away, taking early exit in the prestigious event staking a total cash pot of $250,000.
Looking invincible were German hotshots Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann in their 8-0 blanking of Aussies Greg Jenkins and David Rothalll in the first match yesterday.
“Australia had pretty good chances in the first couple of racks and it should’ve been 2-0 to them but they handed us the first two racks and after that we controlled the match,” said Souquet, riding the crest of his World Pool Masters triumph Monday.
“We ran three or four from the break and the match was history. It’s a really short format and one mistake could cost you three or four games,” Souquet added.
“If I could pick any player in the world to be with, then it would be Ralf. I’m coming off a big win last week and Ralf won the Masters so our confidence is very high,” said Hohmann.
Malaysia set up a second-round showdown with Germany as Ibrahim Amir and Patrick Ooi pulled the rug from under Frenchmen Stephan Cohen and Vincent Facquet, 8-6.
Estonia’s Dennis Grabe and Erki Erm also booked a berth in the second round in repulsing England’s Darren Appleton and Chris Melling, 8-6.
The Malaysians surged through from a 5-5 deadlock while the Estonians pulled through from a 6-6 tie.
The Malaysians emerged victorious in a tense 11th rack battle to move on top to stay at 6-5.
Amir and Ooi went to the hill in taking the next rack and finished off Cohen and Facquet as they labored through in the 14th.