Etisalat
WPA World 8-Ball Pool Championship 2010
Fujairah,
United Arab Emirates
04-10 April 2010
Championship Reports
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Result Sheet >>>
First Round of Play in the UAE
Credit: Jerry Forsyth
The
first round of the elimination stages began today at the Etisalat WPA
World 8-Ball Championships in Fujairah, UAE in the beautiful Fujairah
tennis club. In the very first group to go out Joven Alba set what must
be a record for finishing a race to eight in 8-Ball. He defeated Ali
Nasih 8-0 in under thirty minutes!
Our first upset of the tournament occurred in
the same round when Vincent Facquet defeated world ranked number 1 Mika
Immonen. Facquet went out to an early 3-1 lead but Immonen held steady and
brought the math back to even at 3. Then Facquet again surged to a 6-3 lead
and again the Iceman was able to bring the score line level at 6. From there
the hard-working Frenchman gave no quarter and never allowed Immonen to se
another eight ball as he closed out the win 8-6 to send Immonen over to the
sudden-death side of the charts.
Other
matches of note found Scott Higgins defeating Marcus Chamat 8-6 and Karl Boyes
winning 8-5 over Saeed Al Mutawe. Also Ronnie Alcano slaughtered Radoslaw
Babica 8-1, Raymund Faraon beating Lee Chenman 8-4, Won Sik Ham (please say
that name out loud) beating Mohamed Al Assel 8-5 and Mohammed Hosani slipping
past John Morra 8-7.
Round two was a bit more predictable. Ruslan
Chinakhov won his match 8-1 over Moein Khedri. Ricky Yang dismantled Khaled
Sebata 8-0, Dennis Orcullo took down Oliver Mednilla 8-2, Mehdi Rasheki ran
over Sandile Madlala 8-2 and Hussin Sayeem fell to Yukio Akakariyama 8-3.
Predator International champion David Alcaide won his match 8-3 over Ismail
Yaqob, Lee Van Corteza survived a late-round surge by Majid Sultan to survive
8-5 and Pei-Wei Chang defeated Khaled Sebata 8-3.
The
first man to finish in round three was Shane Van Boening. The very
confident-looking Van Boening wasted little time in beating Masaki Tanaka 8-3
even though he very uncharacteristically actually scratched early in the match
with ball in hand. (Makes you feel a little better about your game, yes?)
Three-time World Juniors Champion Pin-Yi Ko knocked the pins out from under
Omran Salem 8-1 and Andreas Roschkowsky nearly duplicated that with his 8-2
drubbing of Kim Aquino. The drought on close scores continued when Jalal
Sarkeski upset Lu Hui Chan 8-3 and worsened when Thorsten Hohmann handed the
8-0 doughnut to Abdulatif Fawal.
The other matches were closer. Darren Appleton
got by Francis Crevier 8-6 and Jeff de Luna was upset by Mustafa Hassan 8-5 in
a match that never saw de Luna catch a gear or even get his famous break
working. Finally, Kenny Kwok and Abdullah Yousef had a close battle throughout
that ended with Kwok on top 8-6.
Our
final round of the day began with Huijdi See demolishing Sumit talwar 8-2.
Stephan Cohen treated Salah Al Remwy no better and won by the same score. The
quick-game massacres continued with Niels Feijen defeating Takhti Zarekani
8-3 and Ralf Souquet rolling past Kang Lee also 8-3.
Antonio Gabica looked in fine form and never
appeared to feel any pressure as he methodically dismantled Matteuz Sniegocki
8-4. Rueben Bautista then ended his day on a positive note by taking out
Majid Al Azmi 8-5 and at about the same time Marlon Manalo and Bashar Hussein
took their match to double hill, tied at seven games apiece. Manalo took a
break to gather his thoughts. But he scratched on the break to give the ball
in hand advantage to Hussein. Hussein took the rack and sent Manalo over to
the desperation side of the charts.
Finally, the day came to an end when Shaker
Wahdan ran the last table he saw and went home the victor over Amin Fekry 8-5.
A special word of thanks must go out to Knight
Shot, one of the primary sponsors of this event. Not only are they supplying
the tables they are also providing 24-hour technical support for the players.
According to their representative they are the only WPA-approved supplier in
the region with this capability. Tournaments of this caliber rely on sponsors
such as this to make these events possible.
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