NEWS - 09.02.03 – World Pool Masters – Tony „Tornado“ Drago fights to win




Matchroom Sport and RTL 5 invited the 16 participants for this year’s edition of the World Pool Masters which were held for the first time in the Netherlands. The Dutch TV channel had acquired the broadcasting rights for the Mosconi Cup, the WC and the World Pool Masters and had thus transferred the Masters from England to the Netherlands. The beautiful hotel “Zuiderduin” in Egmond aan Zee, directly located at the North Sea, was the location of this tournament. The playing arena corresponded to the Matchroom design, with the difference that the colours were held in typical Dutch orange. So, the conditions were almost perfect.

As the defending champion, I had to play the opening match against 2001 World Champion M. Immonen. In spite of my illness, I started well and took a rapid 3-0 lead. But two lucky situations brought the player from Finland back into the match and he managed to secure a 4-3 lead. I regained the momentum and lead 5-4, but then I failed to pot a long one ball and lost control of the match. During the rest of this match,
I was not really lucky and had to accept my defeat after another two mistakes 5-8. At the end, I simply lacked the power to concentrate.

Immonen lost in the next round to Dutchman A. Lely who played very well. In the second quarter, H.-K. Hsia (TPE) passed very clearly with wins over N. Bergendorff (SWE) and current World Champion T. Hohmann. In the third quarter, E. Strickland (USA) qualified by winning over N. Feijen (NL) and E. Reyes (PHI). The last quarter saw a real surprise. T. Drago (MLT) defeated first the runner-up of the last WC
A. Pagulayan (CAN) and then N. van den Berg (NL) who happened to defeat Bustamante earlier.

In the semi-finals, Hsia played against Lely (8-4) and Strickland against Drago (7-8). The favourite from Taipei, who lost only 5 racks during his 3 matches, could not play up to the expectations and lost 6-8 to the Snooker professional from Malta . „Tornado Tony“ scored his first major title in 9 Ball and in the future, he might give it a good thought as to which game he will prefer.