France Moves to the Final 16

France Moves to the Final 16
Two top-seeded billiard teams had already been eliminated on the opening day of the 2007 PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool.
Russia and Spain, seeded 16 and 12 respectively, were already out and ninth seeds Italy were trying to avoid a similar fate, but faced a tough task against the French pairing of Vincent Facquet and Stephan Cohen.
France made a bright start as they won two of the first three for a 2-1 lead in this race to eight match, held at the Outland nightclub in Rotterdam.
Stephan Cohen downed the 9-ball in the fourth rack as the advantage moved to 3-1 and with the winner’s break format Italy were facing the prospect of being another shock loser.
It was an impressive performance from the French as they extended the scoreline to 4-1 in their favour.
Cohen and Facquet were producing a near-flawless effort to keep the Italians stuck in their seats. It became worse for the Italians as France ran through the sixth rack for 5-1, only three away from victory.
After a lengthy safety exchange in the seventh, France were again at the table and it was a consistent and near-flawless, if unspectacular, march on to the last 16, where China would be waiting.
However, Cohen missed a long attempt on the 1-ball in the next and a successful 1-9 combination made the score 2-6 but gave Italy a route back in to the match.
Muratore spectacularly banked the 1-ball into the right middle pocket but momentum was instantly lost as Petroni missed, not the first time tonight, as he saw an attempt on the 4-ball prove unsuccessful.
That gave France a chance to move to the hill, which they did with the scoreboard showing 7-2. When Muratore missed a pot on the 2-ball that left it hanging over the top right pocket and the rest of the match was a formality with France easing to a 8-2 victory.