The second round of the 2013 World Cup of Pool begins Thursday in East London with four teams in action, including first seed Finland and host England, both of which face separate rivals from Korea and Germany.

All four teams were the favourites in their opening round matches, and each had relatively easy victories to advance to the Round of 16.

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2012 World Cup champions Mika Immonen and Petri Makkonen jumpstarted their title defense by beating Austria’s Albin Ouschan and Jasmin Ouschan, 7-2.

To remain on track for back-to-back World Cup titles, the Finnish pair needs to beat the upset-minded Koreans. The duo of Ryu Sueng Woo and Ham Won Sik defeated Estonia’s Dennis Grabe and Erki Erm, 7-2, on opening day.

Immonen is ranked 10th in the World Pool-Billard Association (WPBA) rankings, but they cannot afford to overlook the Korean team that features Ryu Seung Woo, 49th in the world and no. 1 player in Korea.

In the second Round of 16 match of the evening, England’s Daryl Peach and Chris Melling are pitted against their European rivals Germany composed of Dominic Jentsch and Ralf Souquet.

With home-felt advantage and higher placing in the most recent WPBA world rankings, the English pair of Melling (13th in the world) and Peach (30th) is slightly favoured over the German duo of Souquet (22nd) and Jentsch (85th).

Souquet knows how to beat the odds however, as he was part of the German team which went all the way to the 2011 World Cup of Pool title as a fourth seed that year.

2013 World Cup of Pool – Second Round (Race-to-7)

Sept 19, 2013 (Thursday) Schedule
(Seeds in parenthesis)

Evening session:
Finland (1) v Korea (16)
England B (8) v Germany (9)

Afternoon sessions begin 12:00 noon and evening sessions start at 6 pm London time or 9 pm and 3 am.next day in Australia.

2013 World Cup of Pool Live Streaming LINK 1 | LINK 2 | LINK 3 (Links posted once available)