Defending champions Rodney Morris and Shane Van Boening of the United States went through the proverbial eye of the needle before eking out a pulsating 8-7 win over Malta’s Tony Drago and Alex Borg at the start of the PartyCasino.net World Cup of Pool on Tuesday night at the SM City North Edsa.

Bidding to become the first tandem to win back-to-back titles, Morris and Boening were put to a big test when Drago and Borg forced a hill-hill situation, 7-all. But in the end, it was the Americans who prevailed as they pounced on Malta's dry break in the last and final 15th rack to seal the victory.

“The pressure of playing our first game seems to bother us,” the 39-year-old Morris said of the tight battle that saw both teams engage in four deadlocks.

“But in the end, our true game came out, and that made us win.”

The Americans looked headed for an easy win when they took a 7-4 lead but their rivals charged back and tied the game at 7-all.

Earlier, Chinese Li Hewen and Fu Jianbo beat the female tandem of world No. 1 Ga Young Kim and Yun Mi Lim of Korea, 8-5, to jumpstart their title campaign in the event offering the top purse of $60,000.

The 2007 champions started poorly as they trailed behind 0-2. But as soon as they found their range, they were unstoppable, making one tough shot after the other to advance to the next round.

The Chinese pair will next face the winner between Marcus Chamat and Tom Storm of Sweden and Markus Juva and Mika Immonen of Finland.

Meanwhile, Filipino pool masters Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francis “Django” Bustamante were playing Quatris Bashar Hussain and Mohammaed Ali Bin Ali of Qatar as of presstime. Reyes and Bustamante won the inaugural staging of the event three years ago.

Dennis Orcullo and Ronnie Alcano starts their campaign on Wednesday against Thais Nitiwat Kanjanasri and Surethep Phoochalam.

Equally outstanding were Stephen Cohen and Vincent Facquet of France, who repulsed Tyler Edey and Jason Klatt of Canada, 8-1.

Also advancing were the other French pair of David Alcaide and Rafael Guzman, who beat Louis Condo and Greg Jenkins of Australia, 8-3, and Muhammed Simanjuntak and Muhammed Zulfikri of Indonesia, who trounced Dhaminder Singh Lilly and Raj Hundal of India, 8-3.