2007 World Championship

[hegeland]

Day 1:

I thought I'd seen it all, but no... Tony Drago was complaining about balls jumping out of the pockets, and just a couple of minutes ago in the match Efren Reyes vs. Tomas Kaplan something truly extraordinary happened. Kaplan had a simple 8 to make but the ball jumped right out of the pocket. Then Efren shot the 8 into the same pocket and the ball jumped out again!! Would you believe it, I don't think that's ever happened before!

Otherwise, legend Reyes lost his first match 9-2 and now has to win every match to stay in the tournament. He's up 5-3 against Kaplin at the moment.

[elvaago]

Where do you get this info?

I hope Drago or Bustamante win. They're my favourites. As long as it's not Earl Strickland I'll be happy.

[hegeland]

I've been waching it live on ESPN via SopCast since 4.30 am this morning.

[elvaago]

Ahhh. I understand now. Well keep us posted once in a while. :-)

[RaNeN]

LOL! Balls jumping out, that funny! I dont want Efren to be knocked out so soon.

[hegeland]

Summary of Day 1:

There are 16 groups and 128 players, so there are a lot of matches to keep track of here.

Tony Drago has 2 wins out of 2 so he has advanced to the last 64 already.
Efren won his match 9-4 so he's also through. Bustamante won his first match 9-7, Alcano has recorded wins of 9-1 and 9-3 so he's in good shape.

[hegeland]

Oh, and Charlie Williams must be the slowest player EVER, he's up and down, looks and measures, goes back to his chair to clean his cue, measures some more, looks at it from a fourth angle, chalks a bit, up and down, back to the chair, another clean, some more chalk, down on the shot again and of course misses by a mile...

[Sarmu]

Bustamante won his first match 9-7

I think thats a different Bustamante

[hegeland]

This first to 9 match has been going for three hours now... He's slowed the match down considerably and got his opponent out of rythm, Charlie has run two racks in like 25 (!) mins. 8-8.

[hegeland]

I think thats a different Bustamante

Indeed, that's Joven. Francisco's not even playing today.

[attilahun]

What about Thorsten Hohmann and Ralf Souquet ? Are they doing ok ? Please tell me...

[Sarmu]

They didn't play today

[hegeland]

Play commences tonight (morning in Manila) at 02:30 GMT as a further four groups battle it out.

Players advancing into the Last 64 so far:

Group 1
1. Ronnie Alcano (PHI), 2. Charlie Williams (USA) (the slowest and most boring player ever... ) , 3. Alex Lely (NED), 4. Harald Stolka (GER).

Group 3
1. Luong Chi Dung (VIE), 2. Vilmos Foldes (HUN), 3. Radoslaw Babica (POL), 4. Wu Chia-ching (TPE).

Group 4
1. Lu Hui-chan (TPE), 2. Joven Bustamante (PHI), 3. Yang Ching-shun (TPE), 4. Antonio Gabica (PHI).

Group 6
1. Kenichi Uchigaki (JPN), 2. Tony Drago (MLT), 3. Alain Martel (CAN), 4. Efren Reyes (PHI)

Four players move through from each group. Player one is the man who won two out of two and conceded the least racks, followed by Player Two - the other man with a 100 per cent record. Players Three and Four are those with two wins and one loss. These are separated by the person who won the most racks is third. If this was level then it went to least racks lost.

[rivercard]

Thanks for the report Hegeland!

Good to see Tony Drago and Földes through, I hope they'll do well in the elimination stage.

[calebk]

earl strickland is on today!! fireworks!!
he's playing against my fellow countryman, alan tan!
cmon alan!!