Sunday, September 23, 2007 Valle-Millares pockets 10-ball doubles crown By Marianne L. Saberon-Abalayan
DAVAO City native Gandy "Yang-Yang" Sapsal-Valle and Jay Jay Millares beat Carlo Biado and Mark Mendoza, 13-10, to pocket the 1st San Miguel Corporation (SMC) Scotch Doubles 10-ball championship crown at the Metrowalk in Pasig City Friday night.
Valle-Millares romped away with top purse of P140,000 while Biado-Mendoza settled for the P80,000 runner-up prize.
The 1998 Bangkok Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medalist and SMB Asian 9-Ball Tour leg champion Valle, who resides in Skyline Subdivision, said, "This is a very important tournament for us. We are very happy and very proud to win the first SMC Scotch Doubles 10-ball."
He added, "There was a lot of pressure on us but we got a lift when we went three games ahead of them."
Another Dabawenyo Jech Jech Limen who paired with Robert Dy took home P40,000 along with the other losing semi-finalist tandem of Victor Arpilleda and Fidel Punzalan.
Valle, a mainstay of Bugsy Promotions, and Millares, the pride of Escoda Billiard Hall in Manila, crushed Limen-Dy, 11-1, in the semis. The match was tied at 1-all but the more seasoned pair of Valle and Millares racked up 10 straight frames for the rousing win and book the first seat in the finals.
Biado-Mendoza, meanwhile, came from behind to edge Arpilleda-Punzalan, 11-10, in the other semis encounter.
Valle-Millares breezed through the semis at the expense of Ricky Zerna and Jun Talosig, 9-6. The champion pair also demolished the likes of Ramil Gallego and Julie Falcon Guevarra, 9-4, 2007 US Bar Table 9-Ball Champion and 8-Ball Champion Warren Kiamco and Rodrigo Geronimo, 9-5 in earlier matches.
Biado and Mendoza eliminated Rene Cruz and Joroan Legaspi, 9-8, Russian Petiza and Conrado Pumikpik, 9-4, and Jomar de Ocampo and Jess Dacoro, 9-4.
