Group Stages Winding Down in Doha
by Jerry Forsythe

The World 9-Ball Championship in Doha has been a very hard fought tournament to this point and there are notable casualties. In addition to Peach, Majid and Appleton, we can now add the names of Thorsten Hohmann, Karl Boyes, Huidji See, Fabio Petroni, Niels Feijen and Rodney Morris to the list of top players who will not be in the final rounds. They are being eliminated by some new names, so there is a new crop of players making their statements in Doha this week. Morris was beaten by Chan Kang Kwang. Feijen fell to Youseff Jatar and Petroni lost to So Shaw.

There is room for more stars to fall from the sky. There will be a do or die match tomorrow between Yukio Akakariyama and Thomas Engert. Another between Jeong Young Hwa and Chris Melling. Jason Klatt has to face Mark Gray and Radoslaw Babica will be firing at Alain Martel. Corey Deuel is not safe. He faces seasoned player Antonio Gabica. And Ricky Yang has to get past David Alcaide. Only one of each of these pairings can survive, so it will be a day of drama in Doha tomorrow.

Six of the sixteen groups have now completed play and all of the winners rounds are now complete so we know that the seeded players for the redraw into the final rounds will be as follows:

1 Chang Jung Lin TPE
2 Ronnie Alcano PHI
3 Masaaki Tanaka JPN
4 Mika Immonen FIN
5 Tony Drago MLT
6 Hayato Hijikato JPN
7 Yang Ching Shun TPE
8 Ko Pin Yi TPE
9 Lu Hui Chan TPE
10 John Morra CAN
11 Stephan Cohen FRA
12 Nitiwat Kanjanasri THA
13 Hanni Al Howri UAE
14 Dennis Orcollo PHI
15 Christian Reimering GER
16 Scott Higgins GBR
17 Raymund Faron PHI (UAE)
18 Konstantin Stepanov RUS
19 Johnny Archer USA
20 Antonio Lining PHI
21 Oliver Medenilla PHI (UAE)
22 Sandor Tot SRB
23 Ibrahim Bin Amir MAS
24 Shane Van Boening USA
25 Francisco Bustamante PHI
26 Alen Cuarcero PHI (KUW)
27 Vinancio Tanio PHI (UAE)
28 Craig Osborne GBR
29 Dimitri Jungo SUI
30 Israel Rota PHI (QAT)
31 Dang Jinhu CHN
32 Francisco Felicilda PHI (KSA)

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