Django, Bata whip Hong Kong rivals in opener

MANILA, Philippines - Hall of Famers Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante, representing Philippines Team B, pulled off a routine 8-3 thrashing of Hong Kong’s Lee Chenman and Kenny Kwok Tuesday night in the 2012 PartyPoker.Net World Cup of Pool at the Robinsons Place Manila.

The legendary Pinoy duo pulled ahead to 5-1 in the race-to-8 opening round encounter, putting the unheralded Hong Kong bets to school with accurate shotmaking and marvelous safeties as the two-time champs primed up for a Round 2 duel with an Alex Pagulayan-led Canada team.

“Efren played really good. He controlled the cue ball really well. When Efren controls the cue ball, there’s nobody who can beat him. But this is double, 9-ball, short races so anyone can win. But if we can start breaking good, we got a good chance,” said Bustamante.

Reyes attributed this to his partner.

“I had good speed today because he (Bustamante) gave me good shots.”

The eighth seed Reyes-Bustamante tandem guns for a quarterfinal slot against Canada’s Pagulayan and John Morra in an explosive second round duel tonight. The Canadians scraped past Sweden, 8-7, in the first round.

This will be the first time the Phl legends go up against their fellow Pinoy and former world champion Pagulayan, a dual citizen of the Philippines and Canada who opted to represent the North American nation in the $250,000 tourney.

“ If we play like the way we did in the first match, we can win. But our break is still no good.If we can get the break we like our chances,” Reyes said.

In early results yesterday, Finland’s Mika Immonen and Petri Makkonen downed Korea’s Ryu Seung Woo and Lee Wan Su, 8-6, and England’s Chris Melling and Darren Appleton routed Belgium’s Serge Das and Cliff Castelmein, 8-2, to advance to the second round.

China’s Liu Haitao and Lee Hewen bumped off Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp and Chan Keng Kwang, 8-4, and Spain’s David Alcaide and Francisco Diaz Pizarro eliminated Hungary’s Miko Balazs and Gabor Solymosi, 8-3, to likewise barge into the round-of-16.

Finland thus arranged a duel with Germany’s Ralf Soquet and Thorsten Hohmann, who blasted Serbia’s Andrea Klasovic and Zoran Svilar, 8-1, last Tuesday while England set up a duel with Thailand’s Nitiwat Kanjanasari and Kobkit Palajin, an 8-4 winner over Malaysia’s Patrick Ooi Fook Yuen and Ibrahim Bin Amir, also the other day.