NEWS - 10-11-03 Tokyo 9-Ball International – In the Empire of the „Lion“

The WPA-IBC World Tour 2003 had its final event at the Tokyo 9-Ball International. 32 players were qualified for this last event. For the qualification, the final ranking 2002 was taken into consideration , as well as the winners and medallists of this year’s competitions. Several national and international qualification tournaments had been organized in host country Japan. The format was double KO brackets until the semi-finals in races to ten with changing break.

In round one, I had a good start versus R. Luat (PHI) who entered the tournament via the qualification and I took a rapid 5-1 lead. A few mistakes allowed the man from the Philippines to come back into the match and he finally managed to win 10-7. In the first round of the loser’s bracket, L. Salvas was a difficult to play opponent. The player from Canada, who sure counts amongst the fastest players, committed almost no mistakes and could take control of the match from the very start. Although I was trailing most of the match, I finally could book a 10-8 win. In the next match against S. Tot (HUN), I never really entered the match and was trailing all the time. At the end, two black breaks on my end and two lucky shots of the man from Hungary lead to a  8-10 defeat and rank 17. This result did not reflect the tendency of the last weeks, but some inconveniences in the hotel lead to a situation where many players couldn’t find any sleep.

The players from the Philippines managed these conditions best. Only F. Bustamante couldn’t find his form and lost his first two matches. In the semi-finals, we assisted to the clashes between E. Reyes and A. Lining (both PHI) and A. Gabica (PHI) vs. A. Pagulayan (CAN, but of Philippine origin). Reyes won in two straight sets 6-3 and 6-0. Pagulayan was a bit lucky to enter the final. He won the first set, but lost the second one. In the decisive set, he was always trailing by one or two racks, but Gabica could never make use of this advantage, when he was breaking. At 5-6, the Canadian missed the 9 ball to equal the score, but was lucky enough to pot the ball in another pocket with a double contact via four rails. Now, we assisted to the well-known “penalty shot-out”. Gabica couldn’t not make a single one of his tries and only scored three points by mistakes of his opponent. With a score of 7-3 in the tie-break, the runner-up of the World Championships in Cardiff won and so obtained another opportunity to win a major title. The first two sets of the final were split between Pagulayan and Reyes. In the decisive third set, Reyes was leading 5-4 and, with an open table to run out, had a great opportunity to win the match. But he missed this opportunity and “The Lion” could not only equal the score, but took the lead by shooting an ace. Again, „The Magician“ could not make use of the break and Pagulayan finally won 7-5 and the title of the 2003 Tokyo 9-Ball International.