The top-seeded teams played true to form on opening day of the 2013 World Cup of Pool, notching separate victories to open their campaign off the right foot in the tournament held at York Hall in East London.

Defending champions Finland cruised to a 7-to-2 win over Austria in the opening match of the six-day competition with a prize pool of US $250,000.

Mika Immonen and Petri Makkonen stringed six straight racks after trailing 1-2 to keep their hopes alive of becoming the first nation to win back-to-back World Cup titles. The Finnish pair won the 2012 edition of the World Cup in Manila, Philippines.

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Austria, represented by Jasmin Ouschan and younger brother Albin Ouschan, committed a crucial positional error in the fourth rack, and the Fins took advantage.

In the Round of 16, Finland will take on Korea’s Ryu Sueng Woo and Ham Won Sik, who beat Estonia’s Dennis Grabe and Erki Erm, 7-2, in their own opening match.

In other matches, 2011 World Cup winners Germany had to dig deep after going down 4-to-1 racks against Malta’s Tony Drago and Alex Borg. The German duo of Dominic Jentsch and Ralf Souquet averted the upset, however, and recovered the rest of the way to pull off the 7-4 comeback victory.

The Philippines, always considered a constant threat for the title, also managed to win their first match with a 7-4 victory over Croatia. Dennis Orcollo and Lee Van Corteza are the Filipino representatives while Karlo Dalmatin and Ivica Putnik are the Croatian counterparts.

Two other matches were scheduled on Tuesday and the favoured countries also pocketed wins to move on to the next round.

2013 World Cup of Pool - Round of 32 Scores
(Seeds in parenthesis)

Finland (1) def. Austria, 7-2
Korea (16) def. Estonia, 7-2
Germany (9) def. Malta, 7-4
Holland (5) def. Scotland, 7-2
England B (8) def. Portugal, 7-4
Philippines (6) def. Croatia, 7-4