Morris and van Boening edge tough match

AMERICA reached the semi-finals of the 2008 PartyPoker.net World Cup of Pool for the second time in three years.

The USA team of Rodney Morris and Shane van Boening defeated Austria 9-7 in a hard-fought encounter and will now meet either Japan or Philippines in the semi-finals on Sunday.

Morris was in the American side that lost in the 2006 final to the Philippines and hoped to go one better this time.

"Against Austria was our toughest match because we didn't break the balls well," said Morris. "Shane didn't make a ball once and they broke really well.

"There was no reason to expect them to scratch at the end so we got very lucky. The match was what we expected but the way we played made it tough.

"We want to be the first US team to win this and I don't know how many times I'm going to get invited back so I definitely want to win it this time.

"Anytime you get towards the end of the tournament you have history with the players because it's usually someone that you've played a lot and there is an aspect of revenge."

The USA took the opener but failed on their break shot but Jasmin Ouschan missed a long 1 ball and the USA chose to play safe. The rack went a bit scrappy but it was Austria who completed the clearance to level the score at 1-1.

Austria took the next but scratched in the fourth rack to give ball in hand to the Americans. They cleared until Morris missed on the 6 ball but van Boening retrieved the situation with a great snooker. Ouschan made good contact but left it on and the Americans levelled it at 2-2.

Two balls dropped on the break but with no shot on the 2 ball, Van Boening laid another snooker. It gave the onus to the USA and they ran out to go into a 3-2 lead.

An illegal break got Austria back to the table and they completed a nice run out to level the score.

A decent break shot from Kempter spread the table and the Austrian pair cleared to take the lead at 4-3, but the break in the next was dry. The Austrians got back to the table but a weak safety from Kempter on the brown 7 gifted a chance to the USA and they took it to restore parity.

Morris, who had switched sides on his break shot earlier in the game, stuck with it but endured another dry break. Both sides had visits but with the remaining six balls clustered in a corner of the table, Kempter failed to get out of a snooker and with ball in hand, the USA restored their lead at 5-4.

Yet another dry break, this one from Van Boening, gave Austria a chance but a heavy handed snooker attempt by Ouschan let the Americans back in but Van Boening played a poor safe on the green 6 to give Austria a chance and they squared the match at 5-5.

A great break from Kempter left a nice layout and they made no mistakes to record a rare run out and go into a 6-5 lead.

There were two balls off the break for Ouschan but the table did not lay easy. Evetually the American pair had the chance to tie up the Austrians with snookers. Ouschan escaped from the first but Kempter failed at the second and Team USA cleared with ball in hand to move it to 6-6.

A run out from the break gave t