THE Philippine billiards team bowed out of the 2012 World Pool Team Championships last Wednesday after yielding to Japan via sudden death in their quarterfinal match at the Tongzhou Luhe High School in Beijing, China.
The team made up of billiards maestro Efren “Bata” Reyes, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, Dennis “Robocop” Orcollo and Rubilen “Bingkay” Amit battled back from a 3-1 deficit to tie the match and force a sudden death shootout against the Japanese compose of Yukio Akagariyama, Toru Kuribayashi, Naoyuki Oi and Chihiro Kawahara.
BATA FAILS
The shootout was tied at 3, 4 and 5 but the Philippines had a weak link in the shootout who turned out to be Reyes, whose 57-year-old eyes failed him each time he tried a shot. Japan won the shootout 7-5.
“The shootout is unique to team pool and is implemented when the two teams split their six matches. The 8 ball is then put in the middle of the table down near the short rail level with the first diamond and the cue ball is placed way down at the other end near the head string. The three men and one woman on each team take turns trying to pot the 8-ball in either far corner. All players play in sequence and the team to score six hits first with a margin of two or more wins the match and advances to the next round,” WPA spokesperson Ted Lerner said.
Team Japan battles China 2 in one of the featured semi-final matches on Thursday. Chinese-Taipei and defending champion Great Britain hurdled their respective rivals to complete the Final Four.
China 2 (Dang Jinhu, Dai Yong, Han Haoxiang, Liu Shasha and Chen Siming) toppled Canada (Jason Klatt, John Morra, Erik Hjorleifson and Brittany Bryant), 4-2; Chinese-Taipei (Chang Jung Lin, Fu Che Wei, Ko Pin Yi and Chieh Yu Chou) routed Sweden (Marcus Chamat, Tomas Larsson, Andreas Gerwen and Carline Roos), 4-1 while Great Britain (Darren Appleton, Daryl Peach, Chris Melling, Mark Gray and Kelly Fisher) beat crowd favorite China 1 (Li He Wen, Fu Jianbo, Liu Haitao, Fu Xiaofang and Pan Xiao Ting) in another thrilling sudden death shootout, 6-3.