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Thursday, March 28, 2024

2 Filipinos in World 9-ball semis

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DOHA—After a day of intense pool drama mostly played at the highest levels of the sport, the 2017 World 9-ball Championship has come down to just four players remaining. And what a final four it promises to be.

In one semifinal, Taiwan’s newest pool playing super hero, 22-year-old Wu Kun Lin, will take on Filipino veteran Carlo Biado, who at 34 years old seems more ready than ever to ascend to the mountain top.

In the other semifinal sits another Filipino, Roland Garcia, who once studied at the foot of the legendary Efren Reyes and has, this week, been showcasing similar magician-like skills. 

The 36-year-old Garcia will square up against pool’s new wunderkind in 18-year-old Albanian Klenti Kaci.

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Both semifinals will be a Race to 11, alternate break and will be played at 10 a.m. Doha time(GMT +3) at the Al Arabi Sports Club. 

The finals will be a Race to 13, alternate break and will begin at 2 p.m. Doha time.

Not only did Wednesday’s action ensure that pool will have a brand new, first- time champion come Thursday evening, but it also proved that old axiom that seems to be a common occurrence in pool; once you think you’ve seen it all, something else quickly comes along to prove you wrong.

In this case, unfortunately, that something else had absolutely nothing to do with pool skills played out on the blue pitch. The incident in question happened right at the start of the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Biado had come off a grueling test against fellow Filipino Jeffrey Ignacio, outlasting his younger compatriot 11-7 to advance to the final 8. After a 90 minute rest, Biado sat in his chair waiting for his opponent, China’s Liu Haitao, who had earlier stormed back from a 10-8 deficit to win his final 16 match, 11-10 against Taiwan’s Ko Ping Chung. The veteran Liu, however, was nowhere to be found.

As it turned out, Liu had gone back to his nearby hotel between sessions for a bit of a rest and had likely forgotten to wake up in time. Tournament officials at the hotel were able to rouse Liu and put him in a van to try and beat the clock, where rules stated that players get a 15-minute grace period to show up for a match.  But Liu arrived at the Al Arabi Sports Club 10 minutes past the grace period and found himself disqualified. A shell-shocked Liu couldn’t believe what had just happened, and neither could Biado, who was awarded the match by an 11-0 score line without firing in a single ball.

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