Host players occupied at least three berths in the quarterfinals. Lee Van Corteza also joined Django and Kiamco after edging Satoshi Kawabata of Japan 9-8 in the second round.Three-leg winner of the 2004 Tour Efren “Bata” Reyes survived in a 9-8 thriller against Siaw Wieto of Indonesia in the first round. But he will surely face bitter challenge from Chao Fong Pang of Chinese Taipei in this clash of former world champions. Chao beat Bernard Tey of Singapore 9-5 in the first round. The winner of this re-match of the Ho Chi Minh City leg final will meet Corteza in the quarterfinals.

Antonio Gabica was the o­nly Philippine player bowing out in the first round after losing 9-8 to Taipei leg runner-up Jeong Young Hwa of Korea. Jeong then continued his winning streak by defeating Chao Shih Fan of Chinese Taipei 9-6.

Hung Lu Kung was Chinese Taipei’s third casualty in the second round. He lost 7-9 to Vietnam’s Nguyen Thanh Nam. Before eliminating Hung, Nguyen came back from 4-0 deficit to beat Au Chi Wai of Hong Kong 9-8 in the first round. Nguyen will face Jeong in his first quarterfinal appearance in the Tour.

So Chinese Taipei’s title hope in Manila will fall with the 15-year-old Wu Chia Ching. Wu beat two-time world youth champion Hsia Hui Kai 9-4 in the first round and made the latter the o­nly eliminated seeded player in that round. Then he became unstoppable by defeating host player Gandy Valle 9-6 in the second round. He will meet world number 32 Park Shin Young in the quarterfinals. Park continued his consistent run in the Tour by edging Tan Tiong Boon of Singapore 9-6 in the second round.

Host players occupied three revealed quarterfinal berths, followed by Korea’s two, while Chinese Taipei and Vietnam took o­ne each. This competition has been extremely tight as there have been 5 out of 23 games settled by the last 17th rack.

The Manila leg is the last chance for the 32 participating players to garner qualifying points towards the World Pool Championships in July.  After the Manila leg, the top 10 o­n the Tour Order of Merit will directly qualify into the World Pool Championships. The Tour is the o­nly ranking tour in Asia for players to qualify to the Championships.

Adding to the stakes is the total prize money purse of $250,000 USD up for grabs o­n this regional tour, which started in Singapore (February 28-29) and featured subsequent stops in Ho Chi Minh City (March 13-14), Hong Kong (April 17-18), Taipei (May 7-9) and Manila (May 28-30). The main draw includes 32 top Asian players from 12 countries/ regions.

Visit InsidePOOL for the latest news in the sport of billiards and pool.