DEFENDING champion Carlo Biado survived some tense moments against upset-conscious German Stefan Kasper late Sunday night before pulling off a 2-1 win in the second round of the Men’s World 10-Ball Championship at the Military Zone 7 Indoor Gymnasium in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
Currently ranked No. 3 in the world, Biado, also the reigning world 9-ball champ, took three hours and 25 minutes in subduing Kasper, recovering from a 3-4 loss in the first set and completing the 3-4, 4-3, 3-3, 4-3 comeback victory.
The Filipino “Black Tiger” led five compatriots into the third round of the winner’s bracket in the double elimination tournament offering a top prize of $70,000 (about P3.994 million) out of the total pot of $250,000 ($14.271 million) in the star-studded field that includes US 9-ball Open king Aloysius Yapp of Singapore.
Also prevailing over separate foes were Jonas Magpantay, Albert James Manas, Mark Estiola, Lee Van Corteza and Jeffrey de Luna.
Magpantay beat Syrian Mohammad Soufi 2-0; Manas topped Polish Radislaw Babica 2-0; Estiola blanked Bosnian Sanjin Pehlivanovic 2-0; Corteza vanquished German Joshua Filler 2-0 and De Luna defeated Lithuanian Pijus Labutis 2-0 in their race-to-four matches.
Yapp survived a second-round scare over German Ralf “The Kaiser” Souquet, bouncing back from a first-set loss to carve out a 3-4, 4-3, 4-3 recovery in a marathon match that lasted four hours and 13 minutes at the 5,000-seat venue located in the Vietnamese capital.
