Sunday, March 02, 2008 J. Bustamante shows stunning debut in 9-ball Guinness
FAST-RISING cue artist Joven Bustamante celebrated his Guinness 9-Ball Tour debut with a surprisingly easy thumping of former World Pool runner-up Taiwanese Chang Pei-wei, 9-4, last Thursday at the start of the 2008 edition of the six-city series at the Taipei Gymnasium in Taiwan’s capital.
The 29-year-old Bustamante, a stalwart of the star-studded Bugsy Promotions whose stint is also supported by the Billiards Managers and Players Association of the Philippines (BMPAP), put his win at the threshold of advancing into the knockout stage of this tough three-day competition, which also serves as a qualifier for the World Pool Championship.
He was playing Malaysian Alan Tan at press time yesterday with a win ensuring his safe passage into the quarterfinals.
Also winning his opening match is Jeff de Luna, but not after going through a nail-biter, wherein he was forced by Vietnam’s Do Hoang Quan into a deciding rack before luckily escaping with a 9-8 squeaker.
Not as lucky was Antonio Gabica, who dropped his two Group Stage matches to be the first player to be booted out of contention. He lost a hill-hill match against Indonesia’s Budi Sumarno, before getting axed by last year’s Tour Grand Finals Champion Chang Jung-Lin with a 9-6 trashing.
Marlon Manalo also got off to a bad start as he succumbed to a 9-6 defeat against Aaron Koh of Singapore, putting him in a must-win situation against 18-year-old Taiwanese sensation Ko Pin-yi.
Alex Pagulayan, the fifth Filipino in the field was still playing local bet Yang Ching-shun at press time.
A total of 24 players entered this kickoff stage of the tour, which offers a total pot of $320,000 (P12.8-million), including $15,000 each for the leg winners and a lion’s share of $36,000 to the overall champion. (NSM)
