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MANILA,
Dec. 2 (PNA) – The visiting top foreign players lived up to their
promise to surprise the host team as they built a 2-0 lead in the
race-to-nine Q.C. Invasion: Quezon City-Philippines vs. the World Grand
VILLARDS Showdown which kicked off on Tuesday at the Trinoma Mall in
Quezon City.
The
World team started hot their campaign with its star-studded Team A
spearheaded by former world champion Thorsten Hohmann won the Day One’s
team event, 7-4, to the frustration of the big crowd.
With
RP team captain Efren "Bata" Reyes struggling, the World campaigners
opened the match by winning the first two games and could have taken a
3-0 lead if not of Rodney Morris’ missed seventh ball.
The
Philippines’ Team A comprised also of Roberto Gomez, Dennis Orcollo and
Lee Van Cortez, who took the next two racks to tie at 2-2 but Mika
Immonen and Chinese sensation Chia Ching Wu joined forces with Hohmann
and Morris to build a 5-2 lead.
Reyes
fired up his teammates Robert Gomez, Dennis Orcollo and Lee Van Corteza
but only to win the next two racks as Corteza faulted in his attempt to
hide five ball in the 11th rack.
”We started cold and we could not get enough lucky breaks,” Reyes said. “We will try to bounce back in the next matches.”
The
Philippines, however, still failed in the next match as former world
champion Ronnie Alcano absorbed a 5-7 loss to Ching Shun Yang of
Chinese-Taipei in the first single match of the tournament presented by
Senator Manny Villar’s Villards: Tulong sa Pagsulong ng Philippine
Sport and the Quezon City government led by Mayor Sonny
Belmonte and City Council Majority Floor Leader Ariel Inton.
“We’re
able to get our acts together early and that I think was the key to our
victory,” said Morris, the Team World’s skipper in this three-day event
sponsored by Camella Communities and also supported by the Billiards
Managers and Players Association of the Philippines (BMPAP) with Solar
Sports, RPN-9, the Philippine Star and Business Mirror as media
partners.
Two
more matches were being played as of press time by the pair of
Francisco “Django” Bustamante and Warren facing Raj Hundal of India and
Charlie Williams of the United States in doubles encounter and Alex
Pagulayan against Fu Jianbo of China in another singles match.
The first team to accumulate nine points will win the showdown and pocket the $ 40,000 top purse.
A
simple opening ceremony led by Senator Manny Villar, Quezon City Mayor
Sonny Belmonte and Quezon City Council Majority Floor Leader Ariel
Inton ushered the competition.
“We
are planning to make this a yearly event as this is now one of our
major efforts to promote Quezon City as a premier sports-tourism hub in
the country,” said Inton. (PNA) |
