By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Twelve Filipinos, led by former champion Carlo Biado, last year’s semifinalist Johann Chua and teen sensation AJ Manas, toppled their respective rivals to advance to the 64-player knockout stage of the 2025 World Pool Championship at the Green Halls in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, July 24.
The 41-year-old Biado, who seeks to duplicate his massive fear in 2017, flashed his vintage form and defeated fellow Filipino Lee Vann Corteza, 9-4, while Chua had an easier time in routing Hungary’s Oliver Szolnoki, 9-3.
Eighteen-year-old Manas, for his part, made heads turn by stunning reigning UK Open champion Aloysius Yapp of Singapore, 9-5, to join Biado and Chua in the 128-player tournament that offers $1 million (around P56.9 million) in total prizes.
Bernie Regalario also pulled off one of the day’s upset victories by shocking former world champion Ko Pin Yi of Chinese Taipei, 9-6, while James Aranas, who won the 2023 World Cup of Pool title with Chua, also earned a spot into the next stage with a 9-5 triumph over Austria’s Albin Ouschan,
Also barging into the next stage were Marvin Asis, who drubbed Greece’s Dimitris Loukatas, 9-3; Jefrey Roda, who toppled Turkey’s Mustafa Alnar, 9-4; Anton Raga, who dumped Syria’s Mohammad Soufi, 9-5; Roland Garcia, who outlasted Iraq’s Ammer Ali, 9-7; and Jeffrey Ignacio, who outhustled fellow Filipino Michael Baoanan in a hill-hill battle, 9-8.
Michael Feliciano and Patric Gonzales, meanwhile, had to bounce back from earlier losses to Bosnia’s Sanjin Pehlivanovic (9-2) and Chinese Taipei’s Ko Ping Chung (9-5) with victories to Germany’s Stefan Kasper (9-8) and Chinese Taipei’s Ko Ping Han (9-1) and in the loser’s bracket to stay in the hunt.
Corteza, Baoanan, Mark Kalagayan and Alexis Ferrer were also relegated to the loser’s bracket but failed to recover with defeats over Portugal’s Joao Grilo (9-5), Albania’s Kedio Kaci (9-7), Germany’s Thorsten Hohmann (9-6) and Italy’s Francesco Candela (9-7), respectively.
