Dubai: Vincent Facquet of France accounted for world number one Mika Immonen 8-6 on the opening day of the Etisalat WPA World 8-Ball Championships at the Fujairah Tennis Club on Monday.
Facquet took an early 3-1 lead only to see Immonen fight back to make it 3-3. The Frenchman then broke free for a 6-3 lead only to see his opponent from Finland draw level again. Facquet however held his nerve to chalk out an 8-6 win, sending the world number one to the sudden-death side of the charts.
Also winning on the opening day in the Knight Shot-sponsored event was defending champion Ralf Souquet as he rolled past Kang Lee 8-3, Scott Higgins defeated Marcus Chamat 8-6 and Karl Boyes won 8-5 over Saeed Al Mutawa.
In other results, Ronnie Alcano got the better of Radoslaw Babica 8-1, Raymund Faraon beat Lee Chenman 8-4, Won Sik Ham defeated Mohammad Al Assel 8-5 and Mohammad Hosani slipped past John Morra 8-7. The most impressive winner on the opening day was Joven Alba who breezed through to an 8-0 result against Ali Nasih in less than 30 minutes.Round two was a bit more predictable with Ruslan Chinakhov winning 8-1 over Moein Khedri, Ricky Yang dismantling Khalid Sebata 8-0,
Late surge
Dennis Orcullo taking down Oliver Mednilla 8-2, Mahdi Rasheki getting a similar result against Sandile Madlala and Hussain Sayeem falling to Yukio Akakariyama 8-3.
Predator international champion David Alcaide won his match 8-3 over Esmail Yaqoob. Lee Van Corteza survived a late surge by Majid Sultan to survive 8-5 and Pei-Wei Chang defeated Khalid Sebata 8-3.
A very confident-looking Van Boening wasted little time in beating Masaki Tanaka 8-3 while three-time World Juniors Champion Pin-Yi Ko knocked the pins out from under Omran Salem 8-1 and Andreas Roschkowsky nearly duplicated that with his 8-2 drubbing of Kim Aquino.
Other results: Jalal Sarkeski bt Lu Hui Chan 8-3; Thorsten Hohmann bt Abdul Latif Fawal 8-0; Francis Crevier bt Darren Appleton 8-6; Mustafa Hassan bt Jeff de Luna 8-5; Kenny Kwok bt Abdullah Yousuf 8-6; Huijdi See bt Sumit Talwar 8-2; Stephan Cohen bt Salah Al Remwy 8-2; Niels Feijen bt Takhti Zarekani 8-3; Ralf Souquet bt Kang Lee 8-3; Antonio Gabica bt Matteuz Sniegocki 8-4; Rueben Bautista bt Majid Al Azmi 8-5; Bashar Hussain bt Marlon Manalo 8-7; Shaker Wahdan bt Ameen Fikri 8-5.
