CHENGDU World Games veteran Jeffrey de Luna dumped South Korea’s Ko Tae-yong 2-0 (4-3, 4-1) yesterday to become the first Filipino player to reach the round-of-16 of the World 10-Ball Championship at the Military 7 Indoor Gymnasium in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
Four other Pinoy pool sharks were set to battle separate rivals for a spot in the next round yesterday of the elite $250,00 (about $14.553 million) 10-ball competition offering a top purse of $70,000 (P4.071).
Among them was defending champion Carlo Biado, who kept his title-retention drive alive after eliminating former world pool series 9-ball king Dennis Grabe of Estonia 2-0 (4-1, 4-3) from the loser’s bracket the previous night.
Biado was to play Russian Ruslan Chinakhov yesterday.
Mark Estiola was up against Poland’s Konrad Juszczyszyn, Albert James Manas was to face Marco Teutscher of the Netherlands, and Jonas Magpantay was to take on German Moritz Neuhausen.
