Our second day at the WPA World 8-Ball Championships in Fujairah, UAE was one of several surprises as some strong players have now been eliminated from the event. Mark Gray of the UK, Young Hwa Jeong of Korea, and Ruslan Chinakhov of Russia have all seen their efforts here come to an end. Carlos Cabella of Spain may never wish to see another Bustamante. He was knocked into the one-loss side by Francisco Bustamante and then was eliminated by Joven Bustamante. Many players seem to make this game of 8-Ball seem easy. Carlos Dalmatin won his match today 7-0 in about 40 minutes. Others are struggling to find the proper patterns. It is really quite interesting to watch the players adjust the power of their break shots in order to develop the most advantageous spread of the balls. If the rack is struck too hard the balls spread out and then come back together in clusters. Too easy and the balls all stay down on one end of the table. There is a happy medium where the balls are all over the table with the space between them needed to get proper position.
One big change for this event is the use of the Magic Rack, a thin sheet of polyester that racks the balls tightly without gaps. This way no one has to worry about getting a bad rack and the players seem quite happy with this development. This takes out one luck factor and the players are quite happy to have their skills being the only determining factor between a win and a loss. Tuesday will find more winner's round action with many groups having to many big names in them for them all to make it through. There will be many moment of high drama resulting in joy on one side of the table and tragedy on the other.
As always, we wish to thank our sponsors. They include the title sponsor, Etisalat Telecommunications, Fujairah International Airport, Arjaan by Rotana, Le Meridien Beach Resort, Knight Shot Billiards, Dubai Sport, Al Diar Siji Hotel, Pepsi-Cola, and the Emirate of Fujairah.
