Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante begin their quest to regain the title as the PartyCasino.net World Cup of Pool reels off Tuesday at the SM City North Edsa.

Champions in the inaugural staging of the $250,000 meet three years ago, Reyes and Bata are out to dethrone reigning titlist Rodney Morris and Shane Van Boening for the title and the top prize of $60,000.

As this year’s host, the country is entitled to enter two teams in the six-day tournament.

Reyes and Bustamante form Philippine Team B, while the darkhorse pair of former World 9-Ball and 8-Ball champion Ronnie Alcano and money game king Dennis Orcollo make up Philippine Team A.

The pair of Reyes and Bustamante debuts against Bashar Hussain & Mohammed Ali Bin Ali of Qatar on opening day at 6 p.m.

Alcano and Orcollo meanwhile, see action the following day (Wednesday) opposite Thailand’s Nitiwat Kanjanasri and Surethep Phoochalam.

Other interesting matches on opening day include the one against Germany featuring Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann, both former world champions, versus Hong Kong (Kenny Kwok & Lee Chenman) and Morris and Van Boening’s face-off with Malta, that boasts of Tony Drago and Alex Borg.

The US and Malta met during the opening round of the meet’s 2007 edition, with the Americans barely winning, 8-7.

Li Hewen and Fu Jianbo of China, the winners in 2007, also open their campaign Tuesday against Ga Young Kim and Yun Mi Lim of Korea.

All champion pairs the past three years are part of the 32 teams representing 31 countries vying for the championship in the event promoted by Matchroom Sports in association with Solar Sports of the Philippines.

Other teams favored for the crown are Dutchmen Nick Van Den Berg and Niels Feijen, and reigning World 10-Ball champion Darren Appleton of England, who will team up with Imran Majid.