Day one is complete at the 2007 World Pool Championship and sixteen players have earned their place in the final sixty four.
Defending champion Ronnie Alcano made his way into the final sixty four in dominating fashion with a 9-3 win over Saeed Ahmed Al-Mutawa and then a 9-1 win over German Harald Stolka. Joining Alcano as undefeated players were Japanese surprise Kenichi Uchigaki, Tont Drago, Charlie Williams, Vilmos Foldes, Chi Dung Luong, Joven Bustamante and Hui-chan Lu.
Eight players also made it into the final sixty four with one loss, including crowd favorite Efren Reyes. Reyes struggled all day, but was still able to score wins over Chun-Chuan Liu and Thomasz Kaplan to earn his place in Day five play. Other players to qualify with one loss were former champion Chia-Ching Wu, Ching-Shun Yang, Antonio Gabica, Alain Martel, Alex Lely, Radoslaw Babica and Harald Stolka.
Unfortunately for sixteen of the players, their quest for the World Championship came to an end. American Tony Robles was one of the biggest surprise eliminations on day one. Robles lost to Thomasz Kaplan 9-0 and then lost a hill-hill match to Ceri Worts that saw Robles lead early 7-2 and 8-6 but unable to close out the player from New Zealand. Joining Robles as day one eliminations were Worts, Kaplan, Jonni Fulcher, Brady Gollan and Ricky Yang.
Day two brings us a new group of thirty two players with hopes of qualifying for the final sixty four. Top seeds today are Francisco Bustamante, Alex Pagulayan, Mika Immonen and Jung-Ling Chan. Other top players in action today include Corey Deuel, Oliver Ortmann, Antonio Lining, Lee Van Corteza, Jeremy Jones, Nick Van Den Berg, John Morra and Tyler Edey.
Early favorite Shane Van Boening won't play until later in the event, but he was in action late Saturday as he played a challenge match with local favorite Jeff De Luna. The match was a race to 21 on De Luna's home turf, but it was still the US Open Champion Van Boening who scored the dominating win.
Up to the minute scoring is available online at www.worldpoolchampionship.com and online odds for international users betting are available at www.stanjames.com.
The tournament is also being broadcast as on online pay per view. More information is available here. The team from AzBtv are also in Manila covering the event for AzBtv.com
