Unbeaten France and Cuba booked Super Round spots at the Youth Baseball5 World Cup on Day Two. France beat Taiwan in the feature game of the day between the top two ranked teams in the world. Day Three on Thursday will feature 10 more Opening Round games to determine the top three teams in each group, who will advance to the Super Round.
Both World No. 2 France and Cuba, ranked sixth in the world, are unbeaten with four wins from as many games. Each will finish the Opening Round on Thursday with one game each, against Australia and Malaysia respectively. The chase for the two remaining Super Round spots in each group will go down to the last Opening Round games on Thursday. The top three teams in each group at the end of the Opening Round will go through to the Super Round while the bottom three teams in each group will play the Placement Round.
The top two teams in the world — Taiwan and France — faced off at 13:00 and the world No. 2 Europe champions proved too good for the world No. 1, winning 10-4, 2-0. Les Blues found the going tougher against Korea later in the day, beating the No. 8 in the world 4-2, 4-5, 6-0 to maintain their unbeaten start to the tournament.
The second representative for Europe, Türkiye, won its second game of the tournament in Group A, beating Malaysia 6-4, 5-2, before going down to group leaders Cuba 6-4, 10-0. Its 2-1 record is equal to China and Tunisia for second place in a group topped by Cuba.
All games of the WBSC Youth Baseball5 World Cup will be broadcast live on GameTime, the WBSC’s online streaming service, as well as the WBSC’s official YouTube channel (geo-blocking restrictions may apply).