The action kicked off in Fujairah, UAE, on Saturday with the first of three days of round-robin play - the group stages. After this series the field will be reduced to 32 players. Our first day of play brought two major surprises. Efren Reyes and current WPA 9-Ball champ Alex Pagulayan both lost their first matches. Efren lost 7-6 to Joven Bustamante (no relation to Francisco) while Alex was tortured when his opponent, James Alortega, kicked the eight ball in two rails during their double-hill match to send him down in flames a 7-6 loser.
Since ties at the end of the group stages are settled by the win-loss record of the players it is very important to not only win matches but to also deny racks to your opponent. Several players look great in this regard. Thomas Engert, Oliver Ortmann, Francisco Bustamante, Thorsten Hohmann, Stefan Selberg and Marcus Chamat all came through their matches unscathed with 7-0 wins.
The second round of play will begin Sunday afternoon. Updates will be provided to the world via azbilliards.com.
