EARNS $5,000
MARLON "MARVELOUS" MANALO kept Philippine flag high and redeemed his status as the country's brightest hope by beating American Rodney "Rocket" Morris, 15-10, in their One-on-One winner-take-all $5,000 showdown dubbed as 3rd International Pool Tour (IPT) 8-Ball Challenge, Philippines versus United States yesterday (Tuesday night in West Coast time) in Hollywood Studio (venue of the annual Oscar Award) in Los Angeles, California.
The 31-year-old Manalo, prize fighter of Philippine Billiards Development Foundation (PBDF) needed four straight racks to get an upperhand, 9-7, from a 5-7 deficit in favor of Morris and never looked back to enroute a tremendous 15-10 victory.
" I would like to thank the officials of PBDF, BSCP, Raya Sports and Star Billiards Center who help to fund my international soujurn this year," said Manalo, the 2005 WPA World Pool Championships 3rd placer in a long distance interview with this writer yesterday.
" A couple of tournament here in the United States before I will going back home to join the prestigious 2008 WPA Fujairah World 8-ball in United Arab Emirates," Manalo revealed his next plan, who teaming up with Antonio "Ga-Ga" Gabica to snare the gold medal in the 9-ball pool doubles event in the last year's Thailand Southeast Asian Games.
It shall be recalled that Manalo failed to advance in the knock-out stage of the kick off leg 2008 Guinness 9ball tour over the weekend in Taipei, Gymnasium in Taiwan.
He bowed to Aaron Koh of Singapore, 9-6, and 2007 WPA World Junior of Pool Champion Ko Pin-yi, 9-3, respectively in their three-man preliminaries group D stage match last Friday.
Johnny Archer defeated fellow American Earl Strickland in the 1st IPT match last December while Francisco "Django" Bustamante crushed another American ace Corey Deuel in the 2nd IPT match last January.
contributed by MARLON BERNARDINO
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