Carlo Biado endured back-to-back defeats and was therefore amongst the early casualties at the World Pool Championship, while Mustafa Alnar produced an emphatic victory over Fedor Gorst in Saudi Arabia.
Biado was beaten 9-5 by Dutchman Marco Teutscher in the opening round, and the 2017 champion was unable to mount a charge on the one-loss side, exiting the tournament following a defeat against Spanish Open champion Dang Jinhu in a high-quality contest.
In his first World Pool Championship appearance in five years due to the pandemic and visa issues, the world number 24 found himself 7-3 down against China’s Dang and was unable to recover as he suffered an early exit.
UK Open runner-up Mieszko Fortunski was another to suffer a winless outing in the Middle East, heading home following losses to Fitim Haradinaj and Nikos Ekonomopoulos, while two-time champion Thorsten Hohmann and former runner-up Omar Al-Shaheen also departed.
World number two Gorst could quite conceivably have been another big name on the chopping block, with Vietnam’s Luong Duc Thien unbelievably forgetting to declare a push-out when attempting to force a deciding rack, handing Gorst ball in hand to keep his campaign alive.
Gorst had been banished onto the one-loss side earlier in the afternoon by ranking event semi-finalist Alnar in a 9-3 defeat, with the 22-year-old from Cyprus producing a clinical performance to gain the biggest victory his young career.
Elsewhere, there was jubilation for Saudi Arabia as Ahmed Al-Jabar reeled off six consecutive racks from 8-3 behind against Norwegian youngster Emil-Andre Gangflot, a day after Abdullah Al-Shammari defeated David Alcaide in the first round.
Taiwanese veteran Fu Che-Wei rolled back the years with a shock 9-8 victory over Albin Ouschan after the two-time champion missed a three-nine combination in the deciding rack, while his compatriot Liu Ri-Teng backed up his impressive UK Open campaign with an emphatic 9-2 demolition of Sanjin Pehlivanovic.
Pinoy prodigy Albert Manas came through a hill-hill epic against Canada’s John Morra, while there were also notable deciding rack victories for Daniel Maciol over Naoyuki Oi, Ko Pin-Yi over Jeffrey Ignacio, Hunter Lombardo over Niels Feijen and Lian Han Toh over Scottish Open champion Duong Quoc Hoang.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic moments of the opening round was Hamzaa Ali, an African wildcard from Eritrea, missing a match-winning nine ball on three occasions in a 9-8 loss to Johann Chua. Ali kept his hopes alive with an impressive win over Jefrey Roda on the one-loss side.
All of the world’s top 16 players remain unscathed, even though some of them have an unwanted defeat to their name. Defending champion Francisco Sanchez Ruiz and 2022 winner Shane van Boening breezed through, despite the latter visibly struggling with jet-lag.
