Reyes Cup 2026: From Duong to Gorst — The Battle Between Data and Instinct in Manila

The third edition of the Reyes Cup will take place in Manila this October, and for the first time since the event's creation, Team Rest of World (ROW) arrives with a roster that forces analysts to pause. Five former US Open champions, plus a collection of world titles, gathered in a single team — something even the Mosconi Cup rarely witnesses. But Asia has won two editions in a row, and based on my experience following matches, victory in team formats has never been decided by the record book on paper.

I am the one who stays with the numbers when the stands have gone dark — you may call it work, I call it fate. And this time, the figure that caught my attention was not ROW's trophy count, but Asia's home-table win rate over the past two editions.

Context: The Manila Stage and Hidden Rules

The Reyes Cup operates under the World Nineball Tour (WNT) system under WPA governance, played in a team format with six slots per side: three automatic qualifiers based on accumulated points from the US Open Championship, and three wildcards fully at the captain's discretion. The race format means matches are divided into multiple racks, with team points accumulated across them.

This is no small detail. In team race-format events, the law of large numbers tends to push results toward true strength, but a single off-rhythm rack can trigger a domino effect across an entire session. The Mosconi Cup has proven this repeatedly: the stronger roster on paper does not guarantee a win at the table.

What I know for certain about Manila: the cloth speed, cushion bite, and humidity differ markedly from European venues. Asian cueists who train regularly under these conditions gain an adjustment advantage, while cueists flying in from Europe typically need two to three days to acclimatize. No expensive software can measure feel for the ball; only those who trust each number will find the way.

Team Asia: Cohesion Is the Number No One Measures

Asia's automatic slots almost certainly belong to Carlo Biado, the reigning world champion from the Philippines, and Duong — the cueist Vietnamese media call the GOAT of the nation's pool scene, the 2026 Premier League Pool champion, and the player pivotal to both prior Reyes Cup victories for Asia.

Biado is the type of player I always reserve special respect for in my analyses: composed, positionally disciplined, and proven in team formats. Duong, meanwhile, possesses a quality that pure data never fully captures — composure in deciding racks. He is not merely a good player; he is a player who appears at the right place at the right time.

With three wildcard slots, captain Bustamante will most likely select Aloysius Yapp (Singapore) and Albert Januarta (Indonesia), plus one remaining slot. Yapp holds the world No. 1 ranking and was MVP of the inaugural Reyes Cup. But fairness requires noting: his current season has been described by experts as shaky, a form profile that does not match his ranking. Ranking reflects accumulated past performance, while form reflects the present — and in team formats, the present is what scores.

Albert Januarta is the name that made me pause longest. Eighteen years old, highly ranked on the WNT board, consistently reaching deep stages of majors, with left-hand technique so silky it is hard to believe. But more notable still is the precedent: at the last Reyes Cup, a young Filipino wildcard named AJ Manas electrified the home crowd. Januarta is the next iteration of that model, with the Indonesian market behind him.

And I must say it plainly: an eighteen-year-old cueist who has never competed in this level of team format is the highest-variance unknown in the entire Asian roster. His ceiling is world-class; his floor is a nervous debutant losing pivotal racks.

Team ROW: When the Captain Wants to Build an Avengers Squad

On the other side, captain Souquet is described as pursuing the exact opposite philosophy: assembling the brightest stars regardless of the cohesion cost. And the predicted roster reflects it — Francisco Sanchez Ruiz (Spain), Shane van Boening (USA), Joshua Filler (Germany), Fedor Gorst (Russia), and Jayson Shaw (UK) are all major names.

Francisco Sanchez Ruiz is the tactical anchor. The 2026 US Open winner, a former world champion, he owns a complete all-round game and a strategic break. Shane van Boening brings power and long-range potting, but his form in recent years has lacked consistency.

Joshua Filler is the highest-impact wildcard in my prediction. Media call him the best player at the moment — and three Mosconi Cup MVP awards (2026, 2026, 2026) are precisely the metric that measures the skill the Reyes Cup demands: shining under pressure in team race formats. His 2026 record — UK Open title, European Open semi-final, US Open quarter-final — shows elite-level stability.

Fedor Gorst is ROW's biggest unknown. Described as the most talented and accomplished cueist left on the board, Gorst rediscovered peak form at the recent US Open. But that very event exposed the problem: he knocked out van Boening — a former world champion — then lost to Capito, a Reyes Cup debutant. A player who can beat van Boening and lose to Capito in the same event is a high-variance swing factor, and in team formats, one bad rack can cascade through a whole sequence.

Jayson Shaw, with eight Mosconi Cup titles, holds the densest team-format record in the entire squad. He does not merely play well; he energizes the crowd. But note this: in Manila, where fans will roar for Asia, Shaw's vocal-leader style is a double-edged sword.

And Robbie Capito (Hong Kong) is Asia's unknown if selected: 2026 US Open runner-up with a $50,000 prize, an aggressive break-and-run game full of ambition. But that is a single result, not enough of a sample to confirm consistency.

The Contrarian Angle: Correlation Is Not Causation

This is where I want to linger longest, because I see many fans and even some writers misreading the signal. Five former US Open champions in one ROW roster sounds overwhelming, but that is correlation, not causation. Individual trophy counts do not convert directly into team points.

The evidence lies in the Mosconi Cup itself: Europe has lost with superior rosters on paper because team chemistry did not function. Souquet bets on stars; Bustamante bets on cohesion. Team sports history tilts toward the latter more than people assume.

One more blind spot: form metrics. Before trusting a number, I ask where it was born. For Yapp, the world No. 1 figure was born in the past, while the shaky season was born in the present. For Gorst, most talented is an assessment, while inconsistent results are data. Readers must distinguish these two types of signal.

Takeaway: Toward the Next Edition

What I am tracking is not who wins in Manila, but the signal that result sends. If Asia wins a third time, that is the moment the home-advantage narrative becomes a systemic-gap narrative — a far weightier statement about Southeast Asia's youth development pipeline. If ROW wins, the next Reyes Cup will be a redefinition of the team-format roster model in pool.

And I will still be sitting there, with the numbers, waiting to see whether instinct or data decides the final racks.