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MATTHEW Evans continued his fine form in the PGA EuroPro Tour as he shot the best round of the day for an early lead.
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England and Philippines A scrape through in Manila
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ENGLAND duo Darren Appleton and team-mate Imran Majid have made it through to the last 16 of the PartyCasino.net World Cup of Pool.
However, they made hard work of beating Malaysia after a blistering start on day two of the event, staged at the SM North City Mall Edsa, Manila, Philippines.
The English pair stormed into a 5-0 lead as they raced through the racks and Majid had an easy 9 ball to make it 6-0 but missed it to give the Malaysian team of Ibrahim Bin Amir and Lee Poh Soon a glimmer of hope.
Another miss by Majid, this time on the 5 ball, gave the Malaysians another chance which they took and things looked even better for them as they ran out the next from the break to make it 5-3.
England relieved the pressure by winning the next but an Appleton miss gave a chance to the Malaysians and they made it 4-6 but it was to be their last meaningful contribution to the match.
England took the next and when Bin Amir fouled trying to escape from a complex snooker, it was all over for the Malaysians.
Taking place over six days at the SM Mall North Annex in Manila, the World Cup of Pool features 32 x two player teams chasing a $250,000 prize fund. The entire event is live on Solar Sports and CS9 in the Philippines.
"In 2007 I had to qualify for the World Pool Championships in the Philippines and unfortunately didn't do so, but then I came here the next year and won the World 10-Ball Championships so I love coming here,” said Appleton.
"Something like this event you have the best players in the world and when you play in the Philippines you have to bring your best play," he added.
In the final match of day two, highly-fancied Philippines A, made up of ’06 World Champion Ronnie Alcano and former WPA World No.1 Dennis Orcollo, had a real scare against the brave Thai team of Nitiwat Kanjanasri and Surethep Phoochalam.
The unfancied Thailand team showed no nerves while their more illustrious opponents were clearly feeling the pressure of the great expectation upon them.
There was no trouble in the early stages as the Philippines moved into a 4-1 lead but that lead slowly crumbled as the Thais won four racks on the spin to move into a shock lead.
A stroke of luck helped the home side’s effort as Alcano fluked the 1 ball to set up the tenth rack and they regained the lead following a fine break shot to shake some of the nerves.
There was no further trouble for the Philippine pair as they closed out the remaining two racks to set up a last 16 clash with Denmark or Russia.
"We needed to do everything right but we made a few mistakes and got nervous. But Ronnie said to me to not think about the mistakes and just win this match," said a relieved Orcollo.
Elsewhere on day two, Germany recorded the first whitewash of this year's competition as they dominated from start to finish in their 8-0 thrashing of Hong Kong.
The German pairing of Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann, both former World Champions, justified their pre-tournament billing as one of the favourites and will be hard to beat.
Finland's Markus Juva and Mika Immonen, runners-up in 2007, began the day with an 8-3 victory over Swedish duo Marcus Chamat and Tom Storm.
Japan's Hiyata Hijikata and Satoshi Kawabata produced the fightback of the event so far. They looked to be heading on their way out as they trailed 6-3 against Croatia's Philipp Stojanovic and Ivica Putnik but Japan won five racks in a row to advance.
Italy, the tournament's 12th seeds, set up a mouth-watering clash with Philippines B in the last 16 after Fabio Petroni and Bruno Muratore sent Austria's Martin Kempter and Jasmin Ouschan home by an 8-5 scoreline.
RESULTS - DAY TWO - 2009 PARTYCASINO.NET WORLD CUP OF POOL
Sweden 3-8 Finland, Austria 5-8 Italy, Japan 8-6 Croatia, Germany 8-0 Hong Kong, England 8-4 Malaysia, Philippines A 8-5 Thailand
FIXTURES - DAY THREE
Round 1 (race to 8, winner breaks - all times are local - seven hours ahead of British Summer Time)
12pm: Singapore v Taiwan then Belgium v Poland.
3pm: Denmark v Russia then Vietnam v Holland
Last 16
6pm: USA v Indonesia then Philippines B v Italy
Date posted: September 2, 2009
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