Monday, November 05, 2007 Corteza loses, faces elimination By Charles Raymond A. Maxey
LEE Vann Corteza suffered a heartbreaking 7-9 defeat at the hands of little-known Goran Mladenovic of Serbia Sunday in the 2007 World Pool Championships at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.
Corteza fell 0-3 early but mounted a spirited comeback to tie things up at 7-7. He, however, missed the blue two in the 15th rack to give away the game.
Corteza, 28, still had a chance but his thin cut on the green six on the 16th rack resulted in a scratch.
With ball in hand, Mladenovic sealed the match.
Another defeat will send Corteza packing in the event.
Francisco 'Django' Bustamante, meanwhile, launched his campaign on a bright note Sunday by crushing Zbynek Vaic of South Africa, 9-4.
Bustamante, who has yet to win in the event and was runner-up in the 2001 edition, overcame a shaky start to hurdle his first match.
Bothered by several unforced errors early on, Bustamante was held to a 2-2 score by Vaic after four racks, but zoomed away when he finally found his rhythm.
Bustamante, who is in Group 9, was still playing his second match as of press time where another victory will send him to the knockout stage.
Oliver Ortmann of Germany and Mika Immonent of Finland also had a great start. Orthmann beat Pham Tuan, 9-1, and Immonen whipped Fahad Mohammadi, 9-3.
Last Saturday, Ronnie Alcano and Efren "Bata" Reyes took different paths before reaching the last 64.
Alcano dispatched Harold Stolka, 9-1, in his second match to make it past the group stage. Earlier, Alcano owned Saeed Ahmed Al-Mutawa of the United Arab Emirates, 9-3.
Reyes lost his first match and had to win his next two to advance. The charismatic pool icon was ambushed in the opening match by Japanese upstart Kenichi Uchigaki, 2-9.
He barely staved off elimination by rallying from several three-rack deficits before beating Taiwanese Liu Chun-chuan, 9-7.
Liu jumped the gun on Reyes, 3-0, and maintained a 6-3 cushion midway in match. But when push came to shove, Reyes was at his best.
After a scratch by Liu on the 10th, Reyes clustered five straight racks to take the lead, 8-6, and stay alive.
Reyes eventually advanced after another win, this time over Tomasz Kaplan.
