Billiards Sports23 Editorial 2 min read
Filipino Cueists Take 13 Spots in Qatar World Cup 10-Ball Last 64
Defending champion Jonas Magpantay leads a 14-strong Southeast Asian charge into Tuesday's race-to-11 knockout in Doha, with Vietnam's Duong Quoc Hoang also through.
Southeast Asia will occupy nearly a quarter of the bracket when the Qatar World Cup 10-Ball switches to single elimination on Tuesday, after 13 Filipino cueists and Vietnam's Duong Quoc Hoang survived a bruising double-elimination phase at the Ezdan Palace Hotel in Doha.
The 128-man main draw played races to nine until the field halved to 64 late on Monday night, Doha time. Knockout play begins Tuesday with races to 11, and the champion on Thursday collects $100,000.
Who made it through
Three Filipinos took the clean route, winning both their matches on the winners' side: defending champion Jonas Magpantay, Aivhan Maluto and Jerico Bonus. Ten more battled back through the losers' qualification round: No. 2 seed Carlo Biado, Jefrey Roda, Jundel Mazon, Miguel Salvilla, Marlon Caneda, AJ Manas, Bernie Regalario, Jerson Cumayas, Ruben Cuna and Rocky Tullao.
Duong Quoc Hoang gave Vietnam its own flagbearer, seeing off Caneda 9-6 in the winners' qualification round.
Defending champion stays on course
Magpantay, the unheralded "Silent Killer" who came through qualifying to lift this trophy last November, booked his last-64 place with a 9-5 win over the Netherlands' Jan Van Lierop. He opens the knockout against Taiwan's Hsu Jui An, who eliminated German great Thorsten Hohmann 9-6.
Szymon Kural, the Pole Magpantay beat 13-9 in last year's final, also advanced — stopping Jundel Mazon 9-3 on the winners' side before the Filipino recovered with a 9-0 whitewash of Shahbaaz Adil Khan. Kural faces Jerson Cumayas; Mazon meets Wu Kun Lin of Taiwan.
An all-Filipino tie, and Biado's scare
One Southeast Asian is guaranteed a last-32 berth — and one is guaranteed to go home: Maluto drew Salvilla in the only all-Filipino tie of the round.
Biado's path was bumpier. The world No. 2 was stunned 9-8 by Taiwan's Hsieh Chia Chen, then steadied himself to beat compatriot Mark Estiola 9-6 in the losers' qualifier. He draws Poland's Mateusz Sniegocki next.
Caneda faces the stiffest test of the round against No. 3 seed Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, while Regalario — profiled on these pages after his giant-killing run at the Philippines Open — meets Turkey's Mustafa Alnar, the man who knocked out No. 5 seed Joshua Filler in round one.
Every Southeast Asian in the last 64
| Player | Last-64 opponent (Tue) |
|---|---|
| Jonas Magpantay | Hsu Jui An (Taiwan) |
| Jerson Cumayas | Szymon Kural (Poland) |
| Rocky Tullao | Eklent Kaci (Albania) |
| Aivhan Maluto | Miguel Salvilla (Philippines) |
| Jerico Bonus | Sambor Stachowiak (Poland) |
| Marlon Caneda | Francisco Sanchez Ruiz (Spain) |
| Carlo Biado | Mateusz Sniegocki (Poland) |
| Jefrey Roda | Khalid Alghamdi (Saudi Arabia) |
| Ruben Cuna | Dimitrios Loukatos (Greece) |
| Jundel Mazon | Wu Kun Lin (Taiwan) |
| AJ Manas | Bashar Hussain |
| Bernie Regalario | Mustafa Alnar (Turkiye) |
| Duong Quoc Hoang (Vietnam) | Maks Benko |
Filipino-Canadian Alex Pagulayan (vs Qatar's Ali Alobaidli) and Hong Kong's Robbie Capito (vs Spain's David Alcaide) also qualified through the losers' route.
The price of a brutal bracket
The losers' rounds were unforgiving on both sides. Estiola and Raymund Faraon went out to compatriots — Faraon only after producing one of the week's shocks, a 9-5 losers' round win over Austria's Albin Ouschan. Mark Anthony fell 9-8 on the hill to Poland's Petr Urban, Jeffrey Ignacio lost to Wiktor Zielinski, and Vietnam's Nguyen Phuc Long dropped a 9-8 heartbreaker to Dominik Regieli.
Malaysia's Darryl Chia (5-9 to Maks Benko) and Indonesia's Dhoni Ramadi also exited before the knockout. Filler survived the losers' qualifier, but Shaw, Hohmann, Ouschan and Aleksa Pecelj all go home before the last 64.
All knockout matches stream on the Qatar Billiard Sports Federation's YouTube channel.
