As the round of thirty two at the World Ten Ball Championship draws to a close, one Filipino player is the hero after a great come-back while another was unable to get out of his chair for the length of his match.
Junior champion Jerico Banares enjoyed another trip to the TV table on Friday for his match against Indonesia's Alwi. The fans were fairly quiet as Alwi took an early 4-1 lead, but it was all Banares after that. Each game won by the Filipino youth drew louder and louder cheers from the fans and as they got louder, Banares got better. In the end, it was Banares with a 9-4 win and an appointment to play Nick Van Den Berg in the next round.
Another local hero, Jeffrey De Luna, did not fare so well. Deluna led his match against Taipei's Che-Wei Fu 1-0, but that would be his only cause for celebration. Fu rolled off nine straight game wins, including five table runs, to end De Luna's tournament in 17th place. Fu will play America's Charlie Williams in his next match.
Earlier matches saw America's Shane Van Boening come back from a 4-0 deficit to defeat fellow American Shaun Wilkie 9-5. Wilkie enjoyed three 10-ball breaks, but once Van Boening had control of the table there was no suspense as to the final winner. Van Boening's next match will see him face possibly his toughest opponent so far this week in the form of Taipei's Chia-Ching Wu.
Daryl Peach's hopes of a double World Championship were brought to an abrupt halt by countryman Mark Gray. Gray eliminated Peach 9-6 and will face Mika Immonen in the round of sixteen.
Other round of sixteen matches include China's Haitao Liu vs Ralf Souquet and Demosthenes Pupul vs Ching-Shun Yang.
