PHIL DAILY INQUIRER ARTICLE ON CORTEZA

Corteza sputters in Tour finals

Pinoy pockets $10,000 after lucky, gutsy march

Inquirer
Last updated 02:25am (Mla time) 09/03/2007

BALI, INDONESIA -- Taiwan's Chang Jun-ling avenged his loss to Lee Vann Corteza in the eliminations, hacking out an 11-8 victory over the Filipino Sunday to win the Guinness 9-ball Tour Grand Finals at the Grand Ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel here.

Chang took advantage of a series of scratch shots and poor stroke selections by Corteza to finish strong from 7-all and capture the top prize of $36,000 in the final tournament of the Tour's inaugural season.

Corteza, who beat Chang, 9-3, in their group-stage match Saturday to advance to the semifinals, settled for the runner-up purse of $10,000.

Earlier, Corteza defeated another Taiwanese, Wu Chia-ching, 11-9, in the semifinals to arrange the titular showdown with Chang, a 13-12 winner over compatriot Yang Ching-shun earlier.

Wu, the 2006 World 9-ball champion, led most of the way but two scratch miscues in the endgame allowed Corteza, who hails from Davao City, to reach the title match.

Tied at 9-all, the 18-year-old Wu had a scratch on the break of the 19th frame, allowing the 28-year-old Corteza to reach the hill.

Corteza, who used power breaks earlier in the match to take a 2-1 lead, shifted to the soft break starting in the 9th frame to trim Wu's lead to 6-3.

Chang needed three-and-a-half hours to beat Yang in the first semifinal match Sunday afternoon.

The 10th-ranked Corteza, who made it to the Grand Finals thanks to compatriot Ronnie Alcano's strong showing in the Shanghai leg last month, also bowed to Chang in the finals of the Jakarta leg, the tournament's inaugural leg, in April.

But Alcano, the world 9-ball and 8-ball champion, failed to advance this time in Group A where Yang Ching-sun and Wu finished 1-2 to reach the semifinals.

The other Group A entries were Ricky Yang of Indonesia and India's Dharminger Singh Lilly.

Bracketed in Group A with Corteza and Chang were Chang Fong-fang of Taiwan, Singapore's Bernard Tey and Ibrahim Amir of Malaysia.

Please see the results of this weekend's Grand Final:

Champion (US$36,000)
Chang Jung-Lin (TPE)

Runner-Up (US$10,000)
Lee Van Corteza (PHI)

Joint-third (US$5,400)
Wu Chia-Ching (TPE)
Yang Ching-Shun (TPE)

Preliminaries - 3rd Place (US$2,400)
Ronato Alcano (PHI)
Chao Fong-Pang (PHI)

Preliminaries – 4th Place (US$2,200)
Dharmindar Singh Lilly (IND)
Ibrahim Amir (MAS)

Preliminaries – 5th Place (US$2,000)
Ricky Yang (INA)
Bernard Tey (SIN)

Marlon Bernardino, contributor