Philippines Defeats Great Britain At Predator World Teams Championship

Team Philippines beat Great Britain in a shootout to book their place in the quarter-finals of the Predator World Teams Championship, while hosts Austria came through losers’ qualification with victory over Netherlands to reach the last eight.

The evening’s play in Klagenfurt began with the winners’ qualification round, and three of those four matches went to shootouts. As well as the Philippines’ success, Japan defeated Austria and Spain overcame Slovakia, both by shootout, while Chinese Taipei were 3-0 winners against Germany.

The good news for those defeated teams was they were straight back to action with a second chance to qualify, this time from the losers’ side. Germany scored a 3-1 win against USA, Great Britain beat Bulgaria 3-0 but it was two defeats in two for Slovakia, who lost 3-1 to Poland.

The opening match of the session saw Team Philippines respond to a Great Britain fightback with a shootout victory to earn their spot in the last eight. A 4-2 win over Kelly Fisher for Rubilen Amit, who had earlier in the day been eliminated from the Women’s World 10-Ball, was followed by the same scoreline in the second set for Carlo Biado over Jayson Shaw. That gave Philippines control of the match but Britain responded, first with Fisher and Darren Appleton winning doubles against Amit and Johann Chua, and then Shaw reversing the score of his earlier set defeat to Biado.

That took the match to shootout and most of the spectators at Sportpark Klagenfurt converged on the feature table. Biado fired in the first shot before Shaw took a more controlled approach to make it 1-1. Amit then found the heart of the pocket for Philippines and Fisher missed hers by almost half a diamond. Chua’s miss then gave Appleton the chance to level the shootout but he too failed to make his shot. That meant Biado was shooting for the match and he powered it home to reach the last eight.

“We felt really nervous about the match and we’re happy to come out to come out the winners,” said Amit. “It was it was a great match against very, very good players. So we are just very happy and very relieved to have won the match and to enter the quarter-finals.

Chua added: “Tomorrow I will practice for the shoot out because I missed a shot today because of the pressure. But yeah, thank you to my team-mates, especially Carlo.”

“We’re happy because we won in this match,” said Biado. “It’s a tough match against Great Britain. Tomorrow we need to prepare and we need to work out our shoot out. Thanks to all the fans that support us – team Philippines is always ready.”

Japan and Spain also progressed to the quarter-finals with shootout wins. Japan, facing hosts Austria A, took a 2-0 lead thanks to set wins for Yuki Hiraguchi against Jasmin Ouschan and Masato Yoshioka over Mario He. The Ouschan siblings of Jasmin and Albin hit back for Austria with a 4-1 set win against Hiraguchi and Toru Kuribayashi and Albin Ouschan then defeated Yoshioka 4-3 to take the match to shootout. 

Japan missed their first two as Hiraguchi and Yoshioka both failed from the spot, but Mario He’s miss let Japan back in. Kuribayashi and Hiraguchi both converted for Japan, while Albin Ouschan missed in the fourth innings after his sister had made her shot. That took the shootout to sudden death and after Yoshioka struck for Japan, Mario He missed again.

That meant Austria had to face Netherlands to stay in the event. The Dutch were fresh from a shoot out win against Bosnia and Herzegovina but it was the tournament host nation who struck first, with Jasmin Ouschan scoring a 4-1 set against Tamara Rademakers. Mario He then doubled that advantage with a 4-0 win against Marc Bijsterbosch before the Ouschan and Ouschan sibling double act took their team into the quarter-finals, beating Feijen and Rademakers 4-0.

The draw for the last eight has been made. Quarter-finals take place at 4pm; Chinese Taipei vs Austria will be streamed live on World Billiard TV YouTube Channel, Philippines vs Poland will be on watchbilliard.tv and Spain vs Germany and Japan vs Great Britain will be live on kozoom.com. All streams are free to watch.

The draw and brackets for the Predator World Women’s 10-Ball Championship can be seen here: https://probilliardseries.com/event/1677/. Play continues at 9am on Friday.

The draw and brackets for the Predator World Teams Championship is at https://probilliardseries.com/event/1678/. Play continues 4pm on Friday.

The event is broadcasting two tables with full live coverage and commentary every day. One will be available on the World Billiard TV YouTube Channel and another will be at watchbilliard.tv. All tables can be viewed live at Kozoom.com. 

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