Souquet, Wu and Pagulayan join Hundal in World Pool Masters Semis

Chia-Ching Wu

Alex Pagulayan, the 2004 World Champion, made his way through to tonight's semi-finals of the PartyCasino.com World Pool Masters at the expense of Hungary's Vilmos Foldes in an entertaining match.

Neither player was at the top of his game but the Filipino had enough of the early exchanges to build up what proved to be an insurmountable lead. He now faces Raj Hundal in the last four.

"There was stuff I was doing out there that I should have been trying out on the practice table really," commented Pagulayan post match.

"The performance wasn't too bad and it was an improvement on yesterday.

"Vilmos missed a few balls but that's not my problem and I just tried to concentrate on my game. It's Hundal next so I'll be looking to improve," he added.

Ralf Souquet recorded the biggest victory of the competition with an 8-2 triumph against Imran Majid in the third quarter-final of the 2006 PartyCasino.com World Pool Masters.

However, Souquet, a four-time winner of the tournament, was still unhappy with his performance and believes he must raise his game if he is to progress any further.

He said: "I'm not playing that well at all. I made two safety mistakes, really bad ones and my positioning in most of the game was horrible.

"But I took advantage of Imran's mistakes and he missed three or four opportunities to go in the lead.

"He gave the match to me and I only needed to clear his mistakes and take advantage. I held it together but I definitely need to play better to win any more matches.

"However, I would rather be playing like this and keep winning instead of playing better and losing."

Reigning World Champion Wu Chia-ching moved into the last four of the competition as he got the better of a lackluster Tony Drago by a 8-5 score line.

Both players made plenty of misses but the Taiwanese pulled away in the final stages much to the disappointment of the Malteser.

"I will need to improve tonight as I missed too many easy balls but fortunately for me, Tony also missed, said Wu afterwards.

"I was trying to play cautiously because of the fast speed of Drago. I thought if I took my time I could slow him down, he added.

"Souquet is very steady and my strategy will be to try and win my own breaks and see what happens."

Quarter Finals:

Alex Pagulayan (Philippines) 8 - 5 Vilmos Foldes (Hungary)
Ralf Souquet (Germany) 8 - 2 Imran Majid (England)
Wu Chia-ching (Taiwan) 8 - 5 Tony Drago (Malta)