To advance in each bracket teams had to avoid two defeats.

However, elimination came for the Bermuda team of Gary Bascome, Mike Zimmerman, Brian Walker, Gary Parker, Jon Nicol, Trevor Mouchette, Dennis Eve, Wayne Adams and Ken Wilson when they went down 175-151 to French Canadians Les Arnaquers in their third outing.

Bermuda had also lost their first match in the bracket -- 175-131 to the Next Generation.

From that loss they bounced back in a must-win situation to get the victory which gave them their best ever performance in the tournament. They stopped Canada Four 195-167 as Bascome, Zimmerman and Walker, in particular, played superbly in the last two rounds, winning six out of six for a combined 60-19 margin.

Bermuda needed only three games in the final round to defeat their opponents by 28 points.

With over 800 teams competing, Bermuda were already guaranteed a placing of between 97th and 128th (top 15 percent) by reaching the final bracket. One more win would place them between 65-96 or the top 10 percent.

But in the opening bracket, Bermuda lost their first game on a tie-break 213-202 to American team, No Fear, then won the next four matches against Rock-no-Phobia 172-118, Rack Solid 173-162, Pure Magic 192-173 and No Fear 181-116 which took them into the finals.

As a prelude to the team competition, all players were entered in the individual tournaments for eight-ball and nine-ball in which over 2,000 players competed.

Previously, Bermuda players have not advanced too far in these events but this year Brian Walker reached thet fourth round of each, picking up a ranking of 64-128th in the nine-ball and 129-256th in the eight-ball. In addition, both Wayne Adams and Gary Palmer advanced to the third round of the eight-ball.

Palmer was arguably the best of the Bermuda players, considering this was his first appearance for the Island team. He won 50 percent of his games and conceded only 11 more points than he scored.