Mario He and Albin Ouschan
Chinese Taipei 7-5 Poland
China 7-0 Germany
Austria 7-2 Russia
THREE MORE TEAMS made their way through to the weekend and the quarter finals as the 12BET World Cup of Pool as play continued at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, London. There were wins for China, Chinese Taipei and Austria with just three more round two matches left to conclude this evening.
Featuring 32 two-man teams from around the globe, the 12BET World Cup of Pool is into its 11th year as reigning champions Chinese Taipei attempt to become the first team ever to successfully defend the title at the York Hall.
Defending champs Chinese Taipei came from behind to defeat the Polish pair of Mateusz Sniegocki and Wojciech Szewczyk and keep their dreams alive of retaining their title.
Both teams played a scrappy game and it was anyone’s at 5-5. The Poles broke in the next to give themselves a real chance but couldn’t make anything of it and Ko Pin Yi and Chang Yu Lung took advantage and ran out the last for the win.
On paper Germany v China looked an even match up but didn’t turn out that way as Wu Jiaqing and Dang Jinhu played a perfect game to defeat Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann 7-0.
The Germans made one or two errors and were punished severely by the Chinese duo. A scratch by Souquet in the fifth game with just the 8 and 9 on the table gave Chinese Taipei the rack and they took the next and then wrapped it up with a golden break in the next to seal the victory.
In the final match of the session, Austria overcame Russia as they played a great game to beat the Russian pairing of Ruslan Chinakhov and Konstantin Stepanov. After overcoming some Russian resistance in the early stages, Mario He and Albin Ouschan barely put a foot wrong.
“We wanted to get to at least the quarter-finals and we have done that. We watch Russia in the first round and they played really well. We said we would play our own game and we cannot do more than that,” said He.
Ouschan added, “We were a bit more relaxed in this game than against Sweden. We still make a few mistakes but the luck was on our side. We felt pretty good and we showed that on the table.”
Play continues Friday evening with the final three second round matches:
Philippines v Holland
Scotland v England B
USA v Spain
Broadcast for six days live on Sky Sports in the UK; the tournament is available live in over 100 countries around the world. A comprehensive list of countries and networks broadcasting the World Cup of Pool can be found here: http://www.matchroompool.com/world-cup-of-pool/#watchlive
The 12BET World Cup of Pool will carry a $250,000 prize fund including $60,000 for the champions. The event will be produced by Matchroom Sport Television and televised live on Sky Sports as well as other stations around the world.
12BET World Cup of Pool Tickets are on sale now at www.matchroompool.com priced at just £10.00 per evening session (Tuesday to Sunday) and £8.00 per weekend afternoon session. Tuesday to Friday afternoons are free. A season ticket covering all sessions is priced at £60.00.
2017 12BET World Cup of Pool is sponsored by Rasson Billiards who supplies the Official Table; the cloth is supplied by Iwan Simonis and the Official Balls are Super Aramith by Saluc. Predator is the Official Cue and Chalk of the event.
