Team USA's Shane Van Boening and Rodney Morris
Round 2
USA 8-4 Austria
China 8-1 Spain
TEAM USA looked a different proposition to the team that stumbled through the first round as they switched to cruise control and took out Austria to reach the quarter finals of the 2012 PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool.
8-4 was the score line and Rodney Morris and Shane Van Boening will be feeling confident as they attempt to emulate their feat of 2008 when they won this event in Rotterdam.
The Austrian pair of Albin Ouschan and Mario He were never at the races and He in particular was generous with his gifts. The nearest the Austrians came was when they got it back to 5-4 when it looked like the Americans were running away with it.
Ouschan though, scratched in the next to hand the rack to the USA and a couple more break and runs saw the Americans over the line where they will play an in form Chinese side.
Commented Morris: "Early in the match Shane made a really tough cut down the rail and we took the rack, I think right there that let them know that we were going to be doing some shooting today.
"We played solid. We broke a lot better than our first match. Like Efren said, you get the break going it makes the match a whole lot easier. I mean if you get 1 or 2 easy games in this short format, that's it.
"Mario looked like he was nervous, especially after he scratched early in the match, and after that miss, that was it," he added.
The 2012 PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool runs from Tuesday September 4 to Sunday, September 9 at Robinson’s Place, Ermita, Manila. Once again the total prize fund is US$250,000 with $60,000 going to the eventual champions. Tickets for the extravaganza will be available at the venue on the day of play but with plentiful balconies offering superb views of the playing arena, organisers are anticipating crowds in the thousands rather than hundreds.
In their second round match, China looked all business as they trounced Spain 8-1 and the pairing of Li Hewen and Liu Haitao will surely fancy their chances against the USA in their quarter-final match tomorrow.
Their shot-making was outstanding and they had the break down. It started to go south for Spain in rack two when there was some controversy. Li Hewen saw the clock run out while he was at the table and the Chinese had already used their extension.
Referee Michaela Tabb said that she thought that the Chinese had asked for that first extension, but it turned out they hadn’t so Li was allowed to shoot again and he made a massive full table pot.
The Spaniards protested but Tabb stuck by her decision and China were 2 – 0 up. They broke and ran the next two matches and the game was effectively over as the Chinese romped home.
The 2012 PARTYPOKER.NET World Cup of Pool is sponsored by PartyPoker.net, the world's leading online poker school. Cloth is supplied by Iwan Simonis, Super Aramith balls by Saluc, tables by Diamond Billiards and the Official Cue is Predator.
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