Saturday, August 04, 2007 Gomez, de Luna start strong
ROBERTO “Superman” Gomez and Jeffrey De Luna started their bid strong after beating their respective opponents at the start of the Guinness 9-Ball Tour held in Shanghai, China yesterday.
Gomez routed Bernard Tey of Singapore 9-3 while De Luna outlasted Indonesia’s top bet and noted giant-killer Ricky Yang with a 9-7 victory to open the country’s bid for the first tour title on a bright note.
Later in the evening, double World Pool Champion Ronato Alcano, seeded no. 6, formally booked himself a seat to the Grand Finals by beating Zhang Shu Chun of China 9-5.
De Luna started the game with a 4-2 advantage but faltered midway, allowing Yang to crawl within 5-6. It was at this point that De Luna almost crumbled into pieces as he committed two successive errors while Yang calmly evened the game at 7 racks all.
Yang had the chance to take over the game but made a mistake on his shot for the 1-ball. De Luna recovered from his slump and cleaned up the table in the next two racks to win the contest.
De Luna will face Fu Jian Bo in his final game of the elimination round.
And while his stablemate struggled for the win, Gomez, who also plays for Bugsy Promotions, met only a half-hearted resistance from Tey.
Gomez displayed remarkable skills, pace control, and patience in his win. He now has a strong chance to make it to the Bali Grand Finals.
The no. 8 seed Tey started the game with a win on the first rack but Gomez came back, winning the next four racks before yielding the 6th for a 4-2 lead.
Gomez then cleaned up four more racks for an 8-2 win and at the 12th rack Tey jeopardized his chances to make it to the final showdown.
Gomez’s next assignment could be an easier one as he played against the No.20 seed Li He Wen of China as of press time. Gomez, who had 60 points entering this leg, needs to win the leg to make it to the Bali finals.
Another Filipino cue master, Lee Van Corteza, who came into the leg with 80 points, was still playing against a tough opponent, no. 3 seed and former two-time world champion Chao Fong-Pang of Chinese-Tapei, as of this writing. (RCM)
