Reyes, Bustamante struggle to defend World Cup Pool title

Reyes, Bustamante struggle to defend World Cup Pool title

By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

Efren "Bata" Reyes and Francisco "Djungo" Bustamante recovered from a possible defeat from their Scottish opponents to win their first match at the PartyPoker.net World Cup Pool tournament held on Tuesday at the Outland nightclub in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

The Pinoy legends are the defending champions of the $250,000 scotch doubles tournament in a winner-break format which feature a total of 31 participating countries.

Reyes and Bustamante gained an easy lead of 6-1 during the first 7 rounds of the race to eight, leaving Michael Valentine and Pat Holz to scramble to shoot their balls successively.

The ninth round saw the Scottish pair gaining back their game as they scored 3-6 and continuously won the rounds to a score of 6-7 while Reyes and Bustamante continuously missed shots and made mistakes.

But, as if luck played a vital role for the Pinoys, Valentine missed a long pot on the 7-ball, giving the Reyes and Bustamanete the thriller win of 8-6.

"Di kami nahirapan sa kalaban. Nahirapan kami sa tira naming (We didn’t have a difficulty with our opponents. We had difficulty with our shots)," sighed Reyes.

The Pinoy who is dubbed as the "magician" seemed to have lost momentarily his magic during the games, but some of his best shots awed his adoring fans and spectators.

"Well alam mo naman si Efren (you know Efren), pride of the Philippines. He brings pride to the Philippines," RP Ambassador to the Netherlands Romeo Arguelles said.

The two high-caliber pool pros can’t help but admit that they were very nervous throughout the game.

"Kaya lang sobrang buenas sila. Pero sabi ko noong nakakuha sila ng anim, ninenerbyos na kami (They were very lucky, We got nervous when they got six rounds)," Bustamante said.

"Nerbyos na nerbyos kami. Namumutla na nga ako (We were extremely nervous. I even became pale)," added Reyes.

A large number of Pinoys from the different parts of the Netherlands came to Outland to show their support to the two legends.

Notably present is a Pinoy who is playing for Canada who came to support his idol Reyes and couldn’t believe the difficulty that the two players had encountered.

"Laro ni Efren, pressure na yun. Humabol yung mga kalaban. Buti nalang namintis si ano [Valentine] kung hindi talo sila (Especially to Efren, that’s pressure. Their opponents came near. It was good Valentine missed or else they would have lost)," Edwin Montar said.

"Possibleng matalo kanina. Malaki kasi yung break parating pasok yung bola sa corner eh. Kung natalo sila dun, siguradong talo sila sa susunod [last round] (They could have lost. There was that big break when the balls always went in the corner. Had they lost they would surely lose the next round)," Montar added.

The Philippines will face Croatia on Thursday.

SOURCE: WWW.ABS-CBNNEWS.COM

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=93981