Bata-Django in quarters

EFREN “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante of Philippine Team-B trounced the Indian pair of Raj Hundal and Amar Kang, 8-5 on Thursday to advance to the quarterfinal round of the 6th Party Poker.net World Cup of Pool at the SM North EDSA in Quezon City,

The Filipino tandem, top players of Puyat Sports, said pressure is mounting for them to win every time they play.

“Hopefully it doesn’t matter who we play next but me and Efren (Reyes) have lots of pressure every time we miss a ball or make a mistake,” said Bustamante, who won the WPA World 9-ball title in Doha, Qatar last year.

“We got lucky again,” said Reyes, a former WPA 9-ball and 8-ball champion.

Their next opponent will be either Germany or Malaysia who are still playing as of press time.

Team Germany is made up of Thorsten Hohmann and Ralf Souquet while Malaysia is represented by Ibrahim Bin Amir and Patrick Ooi.

Germany blasted Australia of Greg Jenkins and David Rothall, 8-0, while Malaysia edged Team France of Stephan Cohen and Vincent Facquet, 8-6.

Reyes and Bustamante were the inaugural champions of the World Cup of Pool in 2006. They repeated in 2009.

Meanwhile, Philippine Team A of Dennis Orcollo and Ronnie Alcano will have to beat Team Canada to join Reyes and Bustamante in the quarterfinals.

Canada is represented by Jason Klatt and John Morra who ousted Malta of Tony Drago and Alex Borg, 8-4.

The PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool features 32 two-player teams representing 31 nations. Host Philippines has two teams in the $250,000 tournament where the winning pair gets $60,000.

Earlier, Sweden composed of Marcus Chamat and Thomas Mehtala defeated Switzerland Dimitri Jungo and Ronni Regli, 8-6. /Correspondent MARLON BERNARDINO