NEWS - 09.02.04  On Cue 3 – Bata wins at home



RG-Arena

The third edition of the On Cue, an invitational organized as a singles continental match Manila / Philippines, offered once more top suspense until the last ball. Puyat Sports and the TV channel Studio 23 as well as battery manufacturer Motolite, had invited 16 players from Taiwan, Japan, Germany, Finland, Sweden, USA, Canada and host country Philippines. The game was 9 Ball in races to 9 in double KO format until the semi-finals. In the semi-finals, the matches were played in races to 11 and the final in a race to 13. Such tournaments which are produced mainly for TV production are generally played on the Philippines with changing break.




Award Ceremony


In round one, I had to swallow a bitter 6-9 defeat against double World champion F.-P. Chao from Taiwan. I totally missed the beginning of the match, so that I was trailing 1-8 and had to struggle to come back. Even if I could win another 5 racks – a too short safety shot in rack 15 brought the decision for the player from Taiwan. The second German player, T. Hohmann, had lost to L. Van Corteza also with a score of 8-9 and had to go through the losers bracket. Here, Hohmann defeated WC runner-up P.-W. Chang (TWN) and I could win against S. Kawabata from Japan 9-8, in spite of my intermediate 8-3 lead. But in the next round, the German hopes vanished. Hohmann lost, after leading 6-3, against C.-S. Yang from Taiwan 7-9 and I drowned against M. Immonen (FIN) 2-9. Even if I had a few opportunities, I did not handle the table conditions. Three matches on three different tables did not seem to suit me well.


Ralf Souquet as TV Co-Moderator


In the round of the last four undefeated players, it came to the following matches:

E. Reyes (PHI) – A. Pagulayan (CAN/PHI) 9-7
C.-C. Wu (TWN) – F. Bustamante (PHI) 3-9

In the losers bracket, the two losers won against Immonen resp. Van Corteza and so, the semi-finals were as follows:

Reyes – Wu  11-6
Bustamante – Pagulayan  2-11

15 year old Wu showed too much respect when playing the magician and could only once come back to an intermediate score of 5-7, after having lost 4 racks in the early stages of the match.
Bustamante played far below his possibilities and this is why the 11-2 for Pagulayan was fully deserved.


TV Moderator with Ralf Souquet

The final was the big showdown. The current World Champion from Canada had received a few days earlier the double nationality and wanted to celebrate his next major triumph in front of the fans of Efren „Bata“ Reyes. But the match was pretty balanced and the lead went back and forth all the time. The „Magician“ was the first of the two to dream of the title and took a lead at 12-11. But the World Champion came back and equalled at 12-12. The shot out for the last break was once more decisive. In his typical style, Reyes won the last rack and after a long period of no success, he could finally win another title on his home turf. The last four winners in Manila were Mika Immonen (3 times) and Johnny Archer (USA).