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REYES AND BUSTAMANTE FACE ACID TEST VS FINLAND IN WORLD CUP OF POOL QUARTER FINALS By Ronnie Nathanielsz PhilBoxing.com Fri, 07 Sep 2012  Crowd darlings and two-time champions Efren ?Bata? Reyes and Francisco ?Django? Bustamante face another acid test when they take on the in-form Finnish pair of former World 9-Ball champion Mika ?The Iceman? Immonen and Petri Makkonen who stunned defending champions Ralf ?The Kaiser? Souquet and Thorsten ?The Hitman? Hohmann in the PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool at the Robinson?s Place in Ermita, Manila, Thursday. In the final match of the evening Reyes and Bustamante went up against the talented Canadian pair of 2004 World Pool Champion Alex ?The Lion? Pagulayan and John Morra and despite some nervous moments the hometown heroes pulled through 8-5 to set-up another daunting challenge against Finland in the quarter finals. Up in front 4-2 before a jam-packed venue the Canadians looked confident while Reyes and Bustamante looked harassed and nervous. But just when he needed to pull out something magical Reyes made some shots that had the fans on their feet while Pagulayan, who holds dual citizenship and decided to represent Canada, made some crucial misses as the tide slowly began to turn in favor of the Filipino legends. The biggest moment came in the 12th rack when with two balls on the table Reyes played a fantastic table length bank on the 8 ball, leaving an easy 9 ball for Bustamante to pocket as Reyes did a little jig after Bustamante put them on the hill. Bustamante came up with a dry break but when ?The Lion? came up with a whimper of an attempt on what looked like an easy shot on the 6-ball it signaled the end to an exciting encounter. Reyes conceded in a post-match interview that there was too much pressure on them in the beginning, admitting ?my hands were shaking but when they made a few mistakes I started to feel better and calmed down.? He said ?You have to play good against these guys because Canada is good. But Alex made like four mistakes so that?s no good for them.? Describing his shot of the match when he banked the 8-ball in the 12th rack Reyes noted ?I can?t play safe on that shot. The cue ball is close to the 8-ball and that makes the pocket bigger so it?s better to play offense. I have no choice because there is nowhere to hide the ball.? Bustamante realizes how tough Finland can be saying ?We have to be careful against Finland because they are playing good. But me and Efren are practicing every day. Our one weak point right now is that we are no good in breaking. So if we can fix the break, we got a good chance.? Bustamante who like Reyes is a Hall-of-Famer thanked the crowd for their support. He said ?The crowd is really supportive of us. They are amazing and we love all the support from the Filipino people. It?s always fun to play in the Philippines and especially the Matchroom events. We really want to thank everybody for their support.? Although Immonen made one horrendous mistake when he muffed an easy shot on the 9-ball, the Finnish ace and his partner who played exceptionally well and didn?t miss a shot beat defending champions Germany 8-4. Looking extremely sharp and confident Immonen had earlier predicted after ousting Korea that Souquet and Hohmann were in for a torrid time and although the Germans looked solid in the early racks, the Finns recovered from a 3-4 deficit after Immonen?s miss on the 9-ball to claw back to take the lead at 5-4. Two cool and composed run-outs put the Finnish pair on the hill and after Souquet left poor position for Hohmann, the Finland tandem took over the table and effortlessly ran the balls to take the match 8-4 and move into the quarter finals. Immonen said later ?We broke better than them and that was totally huge. I could see they were struggling. Their break was all over the place and that put a lot of pressure on them. Petri is coming along great and he made some great shots. We are working as a unit, we just KO?d the defending champions and we can do anything.? Makkonen added ?We played a perfect match. Everything went right for us and we are playing very well together.? Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.  |
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