12-17 February 2012
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Great escape into the final four
A last chance comeback puts China's Liu into
the semi finals; joins Fu, Melling and Chang as the World 8Ball Championship
heads to the final day
Credit: Ted Lerner
It's never over
until it's over.
Liu Haitao must
surely be singing the praises of that universal phrase about now, after
the hard nose Chinese turned a desperate situation around at the very
last moment, and came back from an 8-5 deficit to shock Taiwan’s Ko Pin
Yi, 9-8, and move into the semi-finals of the World 8-ball Championship
in Fujairah, UAE.
The race to 9,
alternate break semi-final, which will begin at 1:30PM (GMT +4) on
Friday, will be Liu's first ever trip to the final four of a world
championship. There the 26 year old will face Taiwan’s red hot Fu Che
Wei, who notched his third convincing victory of the day in his
quarterfinal match when he blitzed the Netherland’s Huidji See 9-3.
The cross straits
rivalry is one half of what promises to be an entertaining and
intriguing day of championship pool in Fujairah. In the other
semi-final, England's Chis Melling, who played brilliantly in handily
defeating the Philippines last bet, Roberto Gomez, 9-4 in the
quarterfinal, will take on Taiwan's Chang Jun Lin. Chang, Taiwan’s
number 1 player, easily beat Germany's Oliver Ortmann, 9-3, in his
quarterfinal match.
The down to the
wire thriller with Ko was Liu's second 9-8 match in 24 hours. In the
round of 32 on Wednesday night, Liu just squeaked by Hungary’s Vilmos
Foldes. Today in the round of 16, Liu knocked out Karol Skowerski, who
had shocked defending champ Dennis Orcullo the night before.
Against Ko Liu was
facing certain elimination as he was down 8-5, with Ko at the table
after breaking and sinking a ball. In professional 8-ball, as has been
proven all week, sinking a ball on the break virtually guarantees a run
out so Liu had no reason to think he'd even get a chance. Besides, Ko
hadn't trailed in the entire match and, as he's been doing all
tournament, was playing superbly, using an incredibly powerful and
precision break shot to take command of the match. For two days Ko had
been one of the favorites around the arena to get to the final.
Ko, however, badly
missed his first shot and Liu pounced, clearing the table. Liu then
broke and ran to get to 8-7 down. He then played the rack of his life,
deftly breaking up several difficult clusters while potting balls to tie
the match. A high pressure break and run gave him an unlikely spot in
the semis.
If today's
performance is anything to go by, Liu's opponent Fu is certainly going
to be a tough nut to crack, though. Fu started off by pounding Korea's
Hwang Yang, 9-0. Fu then manhandled the Philippines Lee Van Corteza
9-5. Fu didn't have much problem handling See either.
While anything can
happen in the wide open game of professional 8-ball, England's Melling
surely has to be one of the favorites coming into the final four. The 33
year old Brit has been one of the world's best players for the last 18
months. Years before turning to the American game of pool, he played
English 8-ball where he became one of the greatest ever to play the
game, winning every major title several times. Melling brings a fearless
and powerhouse style to the arena every time out, and oozes confidence.
Melling, though,
very nearly let his chances slip away earlier in the day in his TV table
match against the UAE's best player, Salah Al-Rimawi in the round of 32.
Al-Rimawi came back from 8-6 down and had the break in the last rack.
Unfortunately for the home fans, Al-Rimawi broke dry. Melling stepped up
and cleared the table for a gut wrenching 9-8 win.
That
was all the spark that Melling needed as he next rolled over Thorsten
Hohmann 9-4 in the round of 16. He then took that momentum into his
impressive victory over Gomez.
"Except for a few bad racks in the middle, I
played awesome," Melling said.
"I'm confident I can win this thing. The break is
massively important. And I can pot as good as anybody. I just can’t make
silly mistakes."
As evidenced by his
performance in three matches today, Chang certainly will pounce on the
slightest misstep. Chang grinded out a 9-5 win over Bruno Muratore, 9-3
over Carlo Biado, before crushing Ortmann.