JOHANN Chua split his opening matches while teammate James Aranas was relegated to the loser’s bracket early as the World Pool Championship got going yesterday (Wednesday in Europe) at the Targi Kielce exposition center in Kielce, Poland.
A gold and silver medalist in last year’s Vietnam Southeast Asian Games, Chua topped Kuwait’s Abdullah Al Yousuf 9-5 in his opening match but lost to Poland’s Mariusz Skoneckzny 5-9 in the double-round elimination tournament.
Aranas absorbed a 4-9 beating from former world 9-ball and 10-ball champion Ko Pin-yi of Taiwan and was scheduled to play Polish Karol Skowerski in the loser’s bracket today (Thursday in Europe) in a bid to stay alive and advance to the round-of-64 of the blue-ribbon competition.
Chua was set to play the winner between Greek Dimitris Loukatos and German Pia Filler, the lone woman in the event, in his next match today in another race-to-9 series to remain in contention for the top prize of $60,000 (roughly P3.23 million).
American defending champion Shane Van Boening, who is bidding to follow in the footsteps of compatriot Earl Strickland to become the second player from the US to bag back-to-back titles, opened his campaign with an easy 9-2 win over Japan’s Masato Yoshioka.
