Riding High

Souquet (top) and Hohmann played shoulders above the competition. (Photo courtesy Matchroom Sport)

IN ITS six-year rise to prominence from a fledgling addendum to Matchroom Sport's World Pool Masters and Mosconi Cup franchises, the World Cup of Pool has found its niche among the most highly anticipated events on the yearly calendar. Like its namesake, soccer's quadrennial global event, the cue-sports version leverages the excitement of competition along nationalist lines and lets the narratives write themselves.

For the World Cup of Pool - held Sept. 6-11 at the SM North Edsa Mall in metro Manila, Philippines - a recurring theme since 2006 has been the dominance of the Asian squads. Entering this year's competition, which matched 32 two-man teams in a single-elimination bracket, the Chinese and Philippine squads have won four of five, with the U.S. winning in 2008.

But perhaps the Germans get lost in that story line. Ralf Souquet, a veteran of the previous three events, has taken fifth, third and second - the two top performances coming alongside Thorsten Hohmann. So when the pairing reunited for a third time at the 2011 World Cup, Germany was among the heavy favorites.

But more so than previous years, those higher seeds - half the field is seeded and placed in the bracket accordingly - found the first round to be far more than a chance to loosen up and get familiar with the surroundings. An all-out epidemic of upsets left four of the top eight teams eliminated, with a total of eight unseeded teams advancing to the round of 16.

Reigning champ China, with familiar pairing of Fu Jian-Bo and Li He-Wen, was the biggest team to take an early exit, thanks to a brilliant effort from Switzerland. The Swiss duo of Dimitri Jungo and Ronni Regli dominated their top-seeded opponents in the winner-breaks format, pulling ahead from a 2-2 tie for a rather easy 8-4 victory.

England's powerful pair of Darren Appleton and Chris Melling, the fifth-seeded squad, fell to Estonia. In their nation's first appearance at the World Cup, Dennis Grabe and Erki Erm squared the set at 6-6, then punished England for successive scratches in an impressive 8-6 victory.

"At the beginning, it was very hard with the pressure [because] we'd never played in front of such a big crowd," Grabe said. "But we didn't have anything to lose."

The American duo of Mike Dechaine and Corey Deuel also faced opponents with little to lose in their match with Singapore. Chan Keng Kwang and Bernard Tey won Singapore's second World Cup match in five appearances with an 8-7 thriller over the U.S.

The Germans, meanwhile, had no difficulty passing their first test against Australia. Hohmann and Souquet played perfectly and whitewashed the Aussies, 8-0. The hot start shouldn't have been much of a surprise considering the recent form of both players, especially in Manila. Earlier this year, Hohmann conquered the big-money Philippine Open, beating none other than Souquet in the final.

Vindication wasn't far off for Souquet. The recently inducted Hall of Famer took his first major title on Filipino soil just a week before the World Cup, by winning his sixth World Pool Masters.

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