PH marches to KO stage of World Team billiards

THE Philippines, with its big guns Efren “Bata” Reyes, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, Dennis “Robocop” Orcollo and Rubilen “Bingkay” Amit posting crucial wins, manhandled Estonia of Erki Erm, Joonas Saska, Mark Magi and Anna Grintosuk, 5-1 yesterday to advance to the knock-out stage of the 2012 World Pool Team Championships at the Tongzhou Luhe High School in Beijing, China.

“Today (Tuesday) is the last day of the group stage battles but the Philippines will go through after they posted 6 points in topping Group A. Tomorrow (today) is the start of the real action in the knockout stage,” said American journalist and commentator Ted Lerner.

Team Philippines defeated Indonesia of Ricky Wang, Isral Afrinneza Nasution, Muhammad Zulfikri and Amand Rahayu, 4-2 on opening day.

The Indons however, bounced back by blanking Team Croatia, 6-0, spearheaded by Ivica Putnik, Bozo Primic, Carlo Calmatin and Zrinka Antonijevic to trail, the Filipinos in second place.

Last night, Team Philippines battled Team Croatia in a no bearing match.

Scores after two games of play in Group A: Philippines 6, Indonesia 3, Croatia 3 and Estonia 0. The $300,000 tournament offers $80,000 to the winning team and $40,000 to the runner up squad.

Winners get 3 points, losers none, tie earn 1 point. The top 2 teams in each group advance to final 16 along with the four best 3rd place teams also advance.

Meanwhile, Great Britain, China 1 and 2, Taiwan and Japan also won their matches for the second straight day to march to the KO stage which begins today.

Germany finally got a win and is looking strong for a place in the final 16. South Korea won again and is the leading dark horse in the 24-team competition.