MANILA, Philippines -- Efren "Bata" Reyes and Francisco "Django" Bustamante pulled off the first whitewash of the tournament Thursday to underscore their worth as defending champions in the 2007 PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool at the Outland Nightclub in Rotterdram, the Netherlands.


The top-rated Filipinos crushed Philipp Stojanovic and Ivica Putnik of Croatia, 8-0, and became the first team to reach the quarterfinals slated Saturday.

The impressive win created as much ripple as Japan's upset of the host country's bets and the tightrope act of the American combination of Rodney Morris and Corey Deuel.

Satoshi Kawabata and Naoyuki Oi put up a tremendous performance by beating Netherlands A's Niels Feijen and Nick van den Berg, 8-7, and the Japanese could face the Filipinos in the semifinals set Sunday.

The Americans, seeded second as last year's losing finalists, proved luckier than the home stars as they slipped past Tony Drago and Alex Borg of Malta by the same 8-7 cliffhanger.

In other matches, Switzerland (Marco Tschudi and Dimitri Jungo) booted out Hungary, 8-5; Finland (Mika Immonen and Markus Juva) ousted Qatar, 8-5; and England (Imran Majid and Daryl Peach) slipped past Poland, 8-6.

Reyes and Bustamante will next face the winner of the France-China duel in the quarterfinals. Stephan Cohen and Vincent Facquet banner France while the Chinese bets are Li He-wen and Fu Jianbo.

Japan will take on the winner of the clash between Singapore (Chan Keng Kwang and Toh Lian Han) and Austria (Martin Kempter and Albin Ouschan).

Friday's other round-of-32 matches pit Canada against Korea, Austria against Singapore, Switzerland against US, Finland against England and Belgium against Taiwan.

The scotch doubles event offers a champion's purse of $60,000.

The third-ranked Taiwanese are bannered by former world 9-ball champion Wu Chia-ching and Yang Ching-shun.

source:
Marlon Bernardino, Contributor / Inquirer