Above: Ralf Souquet
THE big guns roared into the round of 64 of the World Ten Ball Championship.
The world’s No.1 player, the hottest player in the circuit, the money-game king, the reigning world 9-Ball champion and former world titlists are now in the next level of the tournament here at the World Trade Center.
Ralf Souquet of Germany, the top-rated player of the World Pool-Billiard Association, survived back-to-back knockout games. He capped his entry into the round of 64 by defeating Filipino Mario Tolentino, 9-4, in a televised match on Friday.
“I’ve been playing in my third straight knockout match, so my mentality is to go all out,” said Souquet, who gave special mention of Lee Van Corteza as the player to watch out for in the next round.
“The table has never been used so I guess the roll of the ball is quite different than my previous matches. But this win is so important for me as it will help me erase my setback in the first match. It’s a totally brand new game now,” he added.
The man known as “The Kaizer” was all business. After allowing Tolentino to get back with the Filipino’s three straight runs, the German ace shattered the game’s final deadlock at 4-all.
In the 10th rack, Souquet made a spectacular jump shot to sink the green ball No.6 all the way to taking a 6-4 lead. He had his finest moment again in the 12th rack. After sinking the No.2 blue ball in a wrong pocket, Souquet pounced on Tolentino’s missed combination on the No.3 and No.10. The double world champion completed a magnificent kick shot on the red No.3 to close in on finishing his opponent.
Immonen, regarded as the top favorite to win this year’s event, rediscovered his winning ways a day after losing his match to Japanese ace Hayato Hijikata, 6-9. Against Ibrahim Bin Amir, he asserted his dominance and didn’t give his Malaysian rival much of a chance of a possible upset and won 9-4.
The newly-crowned US Open champion felt happy to be in the round-of-64, but he could only hope the races could be longer than the usual race-to-9.
“For me, the longer the race, the better,” said Immonen. “It gives players a chance to figure out what to do after falling behind or losing a lead. But we cannot do anything about that. This is now the knockout stage and we’re all looking forward to it.”
Yang Ching-Shun, Asia’s money-game king, put aside his embarrassing shutout setback to Corteza Thursday, returned to his old, deadly form and ripped Jason Theron, 9-3.
Reigning world 9-Ball champion Daryl Peach also secured a seat in the round-of-64 following a tough 9-6 win over Andreas Koukiadakis.
Former world straight ball champions Thomas Engert and Oliver Ortmann had their share of triumphs as well to move up to the next round. Ortmann subdued Ricardo Jones, 9-5, while Engert blanked Victor Arpilleda, 9-0.
Former world champion Thorsten Hohmann and two-time world titlist Johnny Archer are also back in the spotlight after conquering their respective rivals.
Hohmann remained undefeated in the tournament when he hurdled past Marlon Manalo of the Philippines, 9-8, while Archer went first to the loser’s bracket but went on to win two in a row, the last a 9-5 demolition of Raymond Cruz of Canada.
Also advancing to the final 64 were Roman Hybler, who defeated Thomasz Kaplan, 9-6; Ben Nunan over MB Alias, 9-5; Nick van den Berg over Tey Choon Kiat, 9-5; Christoph Reintjes over Chang Pei-Wei, 9-5; Konstantin Stepanov of Russia over Serge Das, 9-4; Nguyen Anh Tuan over Tyler Eddy, 9-7; David Alcaide over Toru Kuribayashi, 9-3; Marcus Chamat over Emil Martinez, 9-5; Jalal Yousef over Mehmet Cankurt, 9-5; Oscar Dominguez over Mariusz Skoneczny of Poland, 9-4; and Erik Hjorleifson over Kazuo Furuta, 9-4.
