De Luna, Pulpul lead seeded Pinoys in World Ten Ball meet

Power-breaking Jeffrey de Luna and up-and-coming Demosthenes Pulpul will lead five Filipino players entered in the main draw of the second World Ten Ball Championship set Nov. 25-30 at the World Trade Center in Pasay City. De Luna is the highest-rated Filipino player in the World Pool-Billiard Association world ranking at No. 8. He finished a strong second to Indonesia’s Ricky Yang in the Philippine Open held early this year to boost his placing in the world rankings.

For his part, Pulpul is currently the world’s No. 9. A virtually unknown player, he made a surprising semifinal appearance in the inaugural staging of the WTBC at the Philippine International Convention Center last year. Other Pinoy bets entered in the tourney are former Asian snooker champion Marlon Manalo (No. 21); reigning Asian Games gold medalist Antonio Gabica (22); and OFW Allan Cuartero (31). De Luna and company are among the first batch of 32 players given outright seats to the WTBC’s main draw owing to their world rankings. The main draw will eventually be composed of 128 players from different parts of the globe. The Pinoy cuemasters will join a powerhouse cast led by current world No. 1 and defending WTBC champion Darren Appleton of Great Britain; Ralf Souquet of Germany (2); Mika Immonen of Finland (3); Niels Feijen of the Netherlands (4); and Shane van Boening of the United States (5). With them are Top 10 players Neils Feijen of the Netherlands (4); Shane Van Boening of the United States (5); Marcus Chamat of Sweden (6); Daryl Peach of Great Britain (7); and Thorsten Hohmann of Germany (10). Other players who have also automatically booked seats in the WTBC are Radoslaw Babica of Poland (11); Corey Deuel of the USA (12); Ko Pin-Yi of Chinese Taipei (13); Yang of Indonesia (14); Charlie Williams of USA (15); Lu Hui Chan of Chinese Taipei (16); Fu Che Wei of Chinese Taipei (17); Satoshi Kawabata of Japan (18); Liu Haitao of China (19); Chris Melling of Great Britain (20); Dimitri Jungo of Switzerland (22); Bruno Muratore of Italy (24); Yang Ching-Shun of Chinese Taipei (25); Wang Hung-Hsiang of Chinese Taipei (26); Mark Gray of Great Britain (27); Ruslan Chinakhov of Russia (28); Tyler Edey of Canada (29); Imran Majid of Great Britain (30); and Nic van den Berg of the Netherlands (32). - GMANews.TV