World Team Takes Day One Lead At Team Cup

At the end of day one of the 2003 World Stars Invitational Team Cup, the World team has taken a 4-1 lead over the team from Chinese Taipei.

The first day's matches were doubles and both sides brought their captains out early. Match one saw the team of Ralf Souquet & reigning World Champion Thorsten Hohmann take on Fong-Pang Chao and Pei-wei Chang. Chao and Chang looked nervous in the opener, while Souquet and Hohmann played very well and dominated the match for a 9-3 win.

The team from Chinese Taipei then got on the board, as the team of Kun-Fang Lee & Che-wei Fu defeated Shin-Young Park & Young-hwa Jeong from Korea 9-5. This tied the event at 1-1.

The next match started out close as the team of Charlie Williams & Rodney Morris from the USA was tied with the team of Ching-Shun Yang & Hui-Chan Lu at 2-2. Lu would make the 9-ball on the break in game 5 to give the Chinese Taipei team the lead in the match, but the team from Chinese Taipei couldn't seem to get a roll for the rest of the match and lost 9-7.

In the fourth match, the World team of Haruyoshi Hinokiyama & Hisashi Yamamoto from Japan scored a 9-6 win over Hui-Kai Hsia & Chin-Ching Kang to assure the World Team of a lead at the end of the day.

The World Team padded that lead in the final match as the team of Alex Pagulayan and Mika Immonen rolled over the team of Tung-Yu Tang & Po-Cheng Kuo 9-2. This left the event score at 4-1 at the end of day one.

Lineups for day two's singles matches was announced and looks like this:
1. Thorsten Hohmann VS. Po-Cheng Kup
2. Haruyoshi Hinokiyama VS. Chin-Ching Kang
3. Ralf Souquet VS. Fong-Pang Chao
4. Hisashi Yamamoto VS. Hui-Chan Lu
5. Rodney Morris VS. Ching-Shun Yang
6. Shin-Young Park VS. Tung-Yu Yang
7. Alex Pagulayan VS. Hui-Kai Hsia
8. Charlie Williams VS. Che-wei Fu
9. Mika Immonen VS. Pei-wei Chang
10. Young-hwa Jeong VS. Kun-Fang Lee