Francisco “Django” Bustamante: WPBL Inaugural Champion

 

Former World’s No. 1 billiards player Francisco “Django” Bustamante won his third major title this year by winning the inaugural World Professional Billiard League (WPBL) championship in Winnipeg Canada.

The sporting event dubbed as Super Series of Billiards held at the Mc Phillips Station Casino saw Bustamante thrash American star Johnny “The Scorpion” Archer, 5-2 in the finals.

A slew of topnotch world cue artists invited in the round-robin format are Nick Varner, Shane Van Boening, Corey Deuel and Charlie Williams and John Schmidt of the United States and Erik Hjorleifson of Canada.

This was Django’s third chamionshipship this after previously being a member of the winning Team Asia that routed the Team Europe last January 17 in Brunei dubbed as Asia vs Europe Challenge Match.

Other members of Team Asia were Hall of Famer Efren “Bata” Reyes, Hui Chan Lu and Ko Pin-yi of Taiwan and Teo Che Soon of Brunei. Each of them received US$ 5,400 for their effort.

Last March 21, Bustamante defeated Puyat Sports stablemate Reyes for the crown of the 23rd Annual Japan Open — Open Division in Tokyo Japan for the top prize of US$ 16,000.

The format of the league was set up so each player of the WPBL played the same amount of games as the other competitors in the round robin event.

The top four played races after the round robin. After the super series was over, each player was awarded points that they would carry forward through the season.

Bustamante tallied a high total 60 points.