Saturday, June 16, 2007 Guinness 9-ball; Corteza off to hot start By Marianne Saberon-Abalayan
LEE Vann Corteza got off to a blazing start in the third leg of the Guinness nine-Ball Tour Friday morning, beating Naoyuki Oi of Japan, nine-seven, at the Genting Highlands Resort in Malaysia.
With his opening day victory in Group F, Corteza needs only another win in his second group match against Ryu Seong-Woo of South Korea to advance to the quarterfinals.
The Corteza-Ryu match was scheduled last night. The 28-year-old Corteza, the reigning national champion who hails from Mintal, Davao City, is out to avenge his finals defeat to Chang Jung-Lin in the Tour's opening league in Jakarta, Indonesia last April.
The Davao cue master, the All-Japan Open champion, was pulled out from the second leg by Filipino pool officials in Kaohsiung but was inserted back and is eyeing to win the title this time.
Also winning his first match was former world pool champion Wu Chia-Ching of Chinese Taipei, who defeated Rasid Samy Bin Mambalusan of Malaysia, nine-seven, in Group C.
Ricky Yang of Vietnman also downed Luong Chi Dung of Vietnam, nine-five, in Group B and Singapore's Bernard Tey Choon Kiat pulled off a nine-seven win over Malaysia's Mohd Sapawi Bin Dan in Group G.
Other Filipino players seeing action like current world nine-ball and eight-ball champion Ronato Alcano, Roberto Gomez and Jeffrey de Luna were scheduled to play Thursday afternoon.
Alcano was to face Chinese Liu Hai Tao in Group D, while Gomez was to meet Kaohsiung leg champion Yang Ching-Shun in Group A.
De Luna, meanwhile, was set to square off with Malaysian Bin Dan.
