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Victor Bolorunduro
Doha
The first stage of the ongoing 25th World 9-Ball Pool Championship, a $200,000 tournament, sent 12 qualifiers into the main round at the Al Arabi Sports Club Indoor Hall in Doha on Thursday.
The tournament, sanctioned by the World Pool- Billiards Association (WPBA) and Asia Pocket Billiards Union (APBU), is the seventh consecutive edition to be hosted in Qatar.
The Stage 1 is played on a single elimination, race-to-seven format, with the emerging qualifiers joining the 116 directly-seeded players in the Stage 2.
Japanese cueists had the most impressive outing in the preliminary stage as their trio of Takenaka Hiroshi, Akagaiyama Yukio and Aoki Ryoji progressed to the next stage.
Hiroshi, who had a dominant 7-0 win over Bahrain's Husain al Khyat on Tuesday, defeated Khaleed al Mutairi of Kuwait 7-3 in his last qualifying match.
He had earlier accounted for another Kuwaiti Mohammed al Hmood 7-5, as well as Iran's Alireza Vahab and Alan Cortero of Saudi Arabia with 7-6, 7-5 wins, respectively.
"I'm happy to be in Doha and equally happy to move into Stage 2. I hope to carry on with this performance and hopefully win the competition. The field is very strong and the players are at the top of their game but I believe I have what it takes to win," Hiroshi, the 2003 International Billiard Council Japan Cup Champion, said after the game.
For Yukio, the path to Stage 2 was paved with his initial 7-0 defeat of Saudi Arabia's Abdullah Malik al Harthi.
He then followed it up with a 7-1 win over Chetan Chabra of India, a 7-5 victory over the Philippines' Richard Alinsub and a 7-3 triumph against Marc Vidal of Spain before dismissing Kuwait's Omar al Shaheen 7-3 to finalise his Stage-2 qualification.
Other qualifiers include Rogelio Sotero of the Philippines, who narrowly edged his compatriot Elmar Haya 7-6; and Taiwan's Wu Kun Li, who qualified after a convincing 7-2 triumph over Japanese Shiraiwa Atsushi.
Filipino Ramil Gallego qualified on the back of his narrow 7-6 win against his fellow countryman Marlon Villamor Canda.
Star player Waleed Majid, who succeeded in reaching the best 16 players in the world in 2015 is anchoring Qatar's challenge in the main stage of the 11-day tournament which ends on August 4.
The players meeting and draw ceremony of the main stage will be held on Friday while the next round of the competition starts on July 30.
The winner of the tournament takes home $40,000 while the runner-up gets $20,000 for his effort. The semi-finalists will be rewarded $8,000 each.
