(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Japan brought Qatar's campaign at the World Cup of Pool to an end with a 9-4 win in London on Saturday.
Qatari duo of Waleed Majid and Bashar Hussain had set the tournament on fire with big wins over the United States and the Czech Republic coming into the quarter-finals.
In the semi-finals, however, Japan looked like they were going to obliterate the Qatari pair as they shot into a 7-0 lead in no time.
Qatar made plenty of errors as the free-wheeling Japanese played without care.
Qatar took a rack back but when Japan got to the hill at 8-1 the end seemed nigh. The match though degenerated as both the level of play from both the teams plummeted. Qatar won three long racks on the spin before Japan put the crowd out of their misery to reach the semi-finals for the second time.
"We are very disappointed with our performance," said Hussain.
"We didn't start well and didn't get any momentum. They had some luck where they would miss a ball and get a snooker and then they took up a big lead. That makes you become a bit nervous because the score is so big.
"We are very pleased to get to the quarter-finals and next time we want to build on that and do better. We are proud to reach this stage but we were very disappointed with that performance."
Japan's Toru Kuribayashi said, "We are very happy with the win. We are a good team. We gave ourselves a good lead in the match and that puts pressure on Qatar. We struggled at the end to get the final rack and that gave them a chance but we are very pleased to be through."
In the other quarter-final, Chinese Taipei overcame a very unlucky Austrian side to book their fifth World Cup semi-final of which they've yet to win one.
Chinese Taipei, represented by the 2015 World 9-Ball and 10-Ball champion Ko Pin Yi and Chang Yu Lung, roared past the Austrian pair of Mario He and Albin Ouschan 9-5 to become the first team to reach the semi-finals of the Dafabet World Cup of Pool.
The Austrians though enjoyed some atrocious luck as they scratched six times in total, with Mario He losing the white to the pocket three times from his break shot. However, the Taiwanese duo showed vision and creativity as they took on some amazing shots and were always on the offensive, looking for chances.
Ko was delighted with the win as he zeroed in on his third major title of the year. "We are very happy to be in the semi-finals again. I was a bit lucky in the World 9-ball final last week, I didn't play great against Shane, but I played well in that tournament and have brought a lot of confidence to London."
He added: "As a team we are playing well together and we have some luck; we tried some shots which worked out for us. We expect to play England A in the semi-finals. They are good players who play very well together. They are defending champions and are in their home country so it will be a very difficult match."
Featuring 32 two-man teams from around the world, the World Cup of Pool is celebrating its tenth year as defending champion England attempt to become the first team ever to successfully defend the title.
Both the England teams, A and B, also reached the semi-finals with wins over Romania (9-3) and Finland (9-4) respectively.
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