THREE of the Philippines brightest hopes crashed out of the 2010 Guinness World Pool Championships round of 16 in Indonesia.
Dennis Orcollo, the former Sun.Star Superbalita champion who won all his group stage matches, lost to Darren Appleton, 8-3, while Antonio Lining crashed out against Naoyuki Oi, 8-6. Former world pool champion Alex Pagulayan also lost to Irsal Nasution, 8-4.
Only former world pool champion Ronato Alcano and the unheralded Jundel Mazon are left in the hunt. Alcano defeated Jeffrey de Luna, 8-2, while Mazon beat Antonio Gabica, 8-2.
In the Lining vs. Oi match, it was the Pinoy who put the pressure on early as he ran out the first rack to take the lead. A couple of errors from the Japanese also put the Filipino ahead, 5-2.
However, Lining returned the favor as he overshot his approach for the four in the next rack, putting Oi back on the table. The Japanese strung up three straight wins to level the match at 5 and the shift of momentum proved costly for Lining as he failed to get his rhythm back.
“My game simply just wasn’t there today. My stroke felt tight and at the same time he (Oi) was in top form. This is a disappointing loss for me because I really wanted to win here. But that’s just the breaks of the game. Sometimes you have ‘it’ and sometimes you don’t,” Lining said.
On the other hand, former World No. 1 Orcollo had a difficult time against Appleton, who was playing flawlessly.
Showing extreme control of the table with impeccably placed safety shots, Appleton took five unanswered racks for a 5-0 start and frustrated his Filipino rival. In the middle rounds, it became clearer the Englishman was the better prepared-man, taking full control of the match and allowing the Filipino only three racks before finally forcing a visibly frustrated Orcullo to concede at the 11th rack. (ML from PR)