Another Seed Bites the Dust
The Korean underdog pairing of Ryu Seung-woo and Kim Woong-dae dug deep to overturn a 5-2 deficit as they dumped out sixth seeds Vietnam at the PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool at the Outland in Rotterdam.
Vietnam, consisting of Luong Chi-dung and Thanh Nam Nguyen, reached the semi-finals of this competition last year and we’re expected to make light work of the inexperienced South Korean duo.
Things did not work out that way though as the Vietnamese lost control of the match in the middle stages and made too many mistakes in the closing games.
Vietnam took the opener but the Koreans leveled it after some poor positional play from their opponents. Rye missed a cross table bank in the third game and Vietnam negotiated a tricky run out to regain the lead.
Good safety from the Hanoi-based pairing forced positional errors from the Koreans and they cleared to increase their lead. They shared the next two racks to move the score to 4-2 in favour of the Vietnamese.
A run out from the break put the Vietnamese in a good position at 5-2 but Nguyen scratched in the next and the Koreans cleared to take the score to 5-3. That quickly became 5-4 as a 2/9 carom won the rack for the Koreans.
Nguyen missed the orange 5 in the next as he tried to cheat the pocket to gain maximum position and the Korean pair gained full advantage to level it at 5-5.
Now playing with renewed confidence, the Korean duo ran out from the break to take the lead for the first time and more of the same in the next rack took them into a 7-5 lead.
The final rack was the longest of the tournament as the balls were tied up awkwardly. Both sides had chances before Nguyen put his colleague into trouble and he missed the green 6.
With three balls left, it looked an easy out for the Koreans but Kim tried to force the 8 ball into the middle pocket and it smashed into the knuckle and flew into the corner pocket.
The cue ball skidded off three rails before landing perfectly on the 9 ball for a great South Korean victory.
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