2008 World Cup of Pool

The 2008 World Cup of Pool was a professional nine-ball pool tournament. It was the third edition of the World Cup of Pool, a pairs tournament for players representing national teams. The event was held again in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, from October 7–11, 2008. There were 32 teams competing in a single-elimination tournament.
The defending champions were Li Hewen and Fu Jianbo representing China, who had won the previous year's event with a 11–10 victory over Mika Immonen and Markus Juva of Finland in the final. The Chinese pair were knocked out in the semi-finals by the English team. The United States team of Rodney Morris and Shane Van Boening defeated the England team of Mark Gray and Daryl Peach 117 in the final to win the event.

Format

The 2008 World Cup of Pool was a pairs nine-ball tournament held at the Outland nightclub in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The tournament was played between 7 and 12 October 2008 as scotch doubles, with players taking shots alternately. The tournament featured a single-elimination bracket consisting of 32 teams.
Matches in the opening two rounds were played as a -to-eight, the quarter-finals and semi-finals as a race-to-nine, and the final as a race-to-11 racks. Players were allowed 40 seconds per shot, and the event used the winner system. It was the third World Cup of Pool event, sponsored by PartyPoker and hosted by Matchroom Sport. The defending champions were Li Hewen and Fu Jianbo representing China, who had won the previous year's event with a 11–10 victory over Mika Immonen and Markus Juva of Finland in the final. The 32 sides were split into two, 16 seeded, 16 unseeded.

Broadcasting

The event was broadcast worldwide, split into 31 one-hour episodes. Commentary was done by Phil Yates and Jim Wych. Below is a list of broadcasters by teritory:

Region

Channel

Australia

Prize fund

The total prize fund for the 2008 event was $250,000, consistent with the previous year's tournament. The winning team received $60,000, which was split between the two players. The breakdown of prize money is shown below:

Stage	Prize money
Winner	$60,000
Runner-up	$30,000
Semi-finalists	$16,000
Quarter-finalists	$10,000
Last 16	$5,000
Last 32	$3,000
Total	$250,000

Teams

The field consisted of 32 teams. As the host nation, the Netherlands were represented by two teams. The second Netherlands team won an eight-team tournament to secure the position against other Dutch teams.

Tournament summary

Early rounds

The first round was played as a to 8. The third-seeded Dutch pairing of Niels Feijen and Nick van den Berg were eliminated by the Belgian duo of Serge Das and Noel Bruynooghe 8–3. Both Netherlands players were ranked in the top five in Europe at the time. Netherlands B, consisting of Roy Gerards and Gijs van Helmond, advanced with an 8–5 win over Chinese Taipei, who were represented by former world champion Wu Jia-qing and Wang Hung-hsiang. The defending champions from China, Li Hewen and Fu Jianbo were tied 55 with India's Alok Kumar and Sumit Talwar, but won three of the next four racks to win 86. The second seed, the Philippines team, Dennis Orcollo and Francisco Bustamante, won 8–2 against Denmark. The English team of Daryl Peach and Mark Gray led 50 and eventually won 84 over the Maltese team.
The previous year's finalist, the Finnish side Mika Immonen and Markus Juva lost in the opening round 48 to Korea. They recovered from 04 down to trail 45, but lost the next three racks, including a in the last. An unwell Vincent Facquet and Stephan Cohen lost to the Canadian team 58. In addition to Finland, Chinese Taipei and the Netherland A sides, two other seeded teams were defeated in the first round. The 14th seed, the Vietnamese side of Lương Chí Dũng and Thanh Nam Nguyen won just one rack as they were defeated 18 by Austria. The 11th seed, the Spanish team of David Alcaide and Carlos Cabello led 72 against the Croatian team. They had to only two more balls to win the match. However, they missed the pot on the and the Croatians won the next 6 racks to win 87.
The round of 16 was played on 9 October 2008 as a race to 8 racks. The defending champions China were playing the Switzerland side of Marco Tschudi and Dimitri Jungo. With the scores tied at 66, Tschudi the causing a foul. China won the rack before Switzerland tied the score at 77. For the match, Switzerland made a and frustrated Tschudi punched the table. China ran the rest of the rack to win and take a 87 victory. Austria and Belgium were two unseeded teams, and were tied at 66. In rack 13, Serge Das missed a pot on the which allowed Austria to win the rack, and ran the next rack to win 86. The ninth seeded Italian team of Fabio Petroni and Bruno Muratore completed an 80 whitewash victory over Korea. This was only the fourth whitewash at the World Cup of Pool. The German team were behind 56, but won the next three racks to defeat Poland. The US team led 72 over the Canadian team of Edwin Montal and Tyler Edey, but lost the next three racks before winning 85. Japan's Satoshi Kawabata and Naoyuki Ōi led 40 over the Dutch B side, but were brought back to 54, before eventually winning 85.

Later-rounds (quarter-finals—final)

The Chinese first seeds led 51 and won 92 against the Italian side. In the tenth rack, Petroni looked close to tears after committing a few errors during the match. England led Germany 64 but were tied at 66, England won the next two racks to go to the hill. In rack 15, the was deemed to be illegal by referee Michaela Tabb, allowing Germany to win the rack. However, England won rack 16 to win 97. After the match, the pair commented that "Only a tournament win is good enough" with Gray adding "we said before that if we could beat Germany then we would fancy our chances of going all the way and nothing has changed". Austria and the United States team were tied at 77. In rack 15, Austria failed to make a ball on the break allowing the US team to win the rack and go onto the hill, and they won the match after running the next rack. The Filipino team of Dennis Orcollo and Francisco Bustamante lost just two racks as they defeated Naoyuki Oi and Satoshi Kawabata of Japan 92. Their third match of the tournament, they had lost only seven racks, winning 25.

Tournament bracket

Below are the results from the event. Teams in bold denote match winners. Numbers to the left of teams represents the team's seedings.

Final

The American duo of Rodney Morris and Shane Van Boening beat the English team of Daryl Peach and Mark Gray with 11–7 to win the first championship for United States.