Peach on a run at 2007 Philippines World Pool Championship

Daryl Peach has continued his best-ever run in the 2007 Philippines World Pool Championship. Yesterday, Peach, 35, defeated reigning World Champion Filipino Ronnie Alcano and he followed that up on Thursday with another stunning win in the Araneta Coliseum, Manila, Philippines.

Peach beat Chinese Taipei's Lee Kun-fang, a runner-up in 1997, to move into the last 16 of the biggest pool competition of the year.

This is already Peach's best ever performance in the tournament but he has a great chance for it to become even better as on Friday he meets German Harald Stolka, a player ranked 29 places below him in the European standings.

"On paper it does look an appetising draw," said Peach. "But he must be playing well and he beat Wu Yu-lun (Chinese Taipei) 10-2 so is also feeling good, like I am.

"I'm just going to try to play the same way that I've done so before."

Peach lost his opening match against Matjaz Erculj (Slovenia) 9-1 on Tuesday and was only one more defeat away from elimination.

But victories over Rodolfo Luat (Philippines), Dharminder Singh Lilly (India), Alcano and now Lee have taken Peach into the last 16, only four wins away from becoming World Champion.

A total of 128 players from 46 countries started in this nine-day competition and the eventual winner will scoop the $100,000 top prize.

Peach admitted he was delighted to have performed so well, especially considering his shaky start.

"I lost my first match 9-1 and only had four visits to the table in the whole match against a guy who had never beat me," said Peach.

"After that I only had one hour to calm down before my next match and I was shocked more than anything. I had to pinch myself.

"I had come all this way to Manila, hardly had a chance and got beat 9-1. But I'd done not much wrong so I got on with the next match against Rodolfo Luat (Philippines), won 9-3 and played a near-perfect match. After that my confidence came back.

"I came here knowing I was playing well and I have been all season, with a few big wins. My intention was just to play each match the best I can and make the least amount of mistakes as possible."

The competition is being staged at the Araneta Coliseum, the venue for the legendary heavyweight contest between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier in 1975.