Pinoys head 6 groups in World 9-ball

The World Pool 9-ball Championship fires off Nov. 4 at the PICC with 128 of the world’s finest pool players, including Filipino pool legends Efren "Bata" Reyes and Francisco "Django" Bustamante, vying for the top purse of $100,000 out of the record $400,000 prize fund.

The Filipinos head six of the 32 groups of four players each with Reyes, the 1999 champion in Cardiff, leading Group 2 that includes Radoslaw Babica of Poland, Indon Roy Apancho and American Tony Crosby.

Bustamante, the former world No. 1 who teamed up with Reyes to win the inaugural World Cup crown last month, spearheads Group 10 composed of Darren Appleton of England, Prince Haji Billah of Brunei and American Charles Bryant.

Promoter Matchroom Sport yesterday released the composition of the 32 groups that will contest the opening stages of the competition. Each division is headed by one of 32 seeded players, with defending champion Wu Chia-ching taking the top spot of No.1 seed.

The second player in each group comes from a second group of 32 seeded players although these players were not placed in any order of merit and were drawn randomly while the final two players were drawn randomly from geographical-based draw bags.

The top two players in each group after a round robin elims will advance to the last 64.

The event will be broadcast in an unprecedented 60-plus hours of live TV over the nine days of the event.

Alex Pagulayan, the Canada-based Filipino who ruled the event in 2004 in Taiwan, is bunched with Chinese Li He-wen, Taiwanese Lee Kun-fang and Gustavo Espinosa of Argentina in Group 4, while Marlon Manalo heads Group 5 that includes Mike Davis of the US, Fu Che-wei of Taiwan and Canadian Nicolas Guimond.

Dennis Orcollo, his confidence boosted by his victory in the recent World Pool League, tows Group 16 composed of Vietnam’s Thanh Nam Nguyen, Briton Steve Davis and Aussie Dave Reljic, while veteran Jose "Amang" Parica leads the likes of American Shawn Putnam, Indon Ricky Yang and Scot Pat Holtz in Group 23.

The other local bets seeing action in the event ending Nov. 12 are Roland Garcia (Group 13), Gandy Valle (Group 15), Rodolfo Luat (Group 21), Ronnie Alcano (Group 28), Jeff de Luna (Group 29), and Ramil Gallego (Group 32).

Joining the crack RP bets and Wu in the hunt for the top prize are Germans Thomas Engert, Christian Reimering and Oliver Ortmann; Mika Immonen and Markus Juva of Finland; Americans Rodney Morris, Earl Strickland, Corey Deuel and Jeremy Jones;

Swede Marcus Chamat, Taiwan’s Yang Ching-shun, Chao Fong-pang, Chang Pei-wei

Nick van den Berg, Alex Lely and Niels Feijen of the Netherlands; England’s Imran Majid and Daryl Peach; Hungarian Vilmos Foldes, Japan’s Kunihiko and Takahashi, Italian Fabio Petroni.