Dennis Orcollo (Photo courtesy of Chito Ines)
Manila, Philippines- It was an action filled third day at The Predator Championships packed with emotional and thrilling results. China's stars shined throughout the event led by Liu Haitao and Wu Jia Qing. If both players win their matches, they will have created an all China finals here in the Philippines. Only two men can stop them, Mika Immonen and Dennis Orcullo.
The 11th Annual Predator International Championship is the premiere event of Predator Cues and produced by Dragon Promotions taking place this week September 15 - 18, 2011 at Robinson's Galleria Mall in Manila, Philippines. The event is co-sponsored by Asia Brewery Incorporated, Yalin Tables, Andy Cloth, Pool & Billiard Magazine, Colt 45 Strong Beer, Summit Natural Drinking Water, Motolite, Aramith Balls, Robinson's Galleria, Magic 89.9 Radio, Philippines Star Newspaper, Crowne Plaza Ortigas, and TV network partners ABS-CBN and ESPN Star Sports. World class pros from 30 countries were represented at this year's event. Daily coverage and full info on www.predator10ball.com
Fans can view the stream online for free at http://www.liveonlive.com/show/predator10ball-manila-sept2011
22- year old Chinese Wu Jia Qing played the villain as he defeated local favorite and national hero Efren Reyes. Reyes was the defending champion of the Predator Championship and looked good to defend his title getting to the quarter-finals. Reyes led 9-8 against Wu needing only one more game to close the match. But he gave Wu one more small chance which Wu fully took to enter the semi-finals with his 10-9 escape from Efren. Earlier Wu had defeated the hot streaking Thorsten Hohmann from Germany 10-5. Hohmann had won the past 2 consecutive major championships on the pro tour prior to his loss to Wu.
Dennis Orcullo will be the last Filipino standing in the final four today. Orcullo fittingly is also currently ranked #1 in the world. Orcullo started off this event on a sour note dropping his first match to Japan's World Champ Yukio Akagariyama 9-3. But since then Orcullo won 6 consecutive matches including last night's wipeout of fellow Filipino Ramil Gallego 10-3. Prior to that Orcullo dominated Jundel Mazon 10-2 meaning in his last two matches he has 20 game wins and only 5 losses. He will need all his mojo today when he faces off with Wu, who is a two time World Champion already.
The sleeper giant of the event is relatively unknown Liu Haitao of China. Liu has been silently killing all his opponents thus far knocking off huge names like Thorsten Hohmann, Antonio Lining, and Darren Appleton. Liu then made a nice win over Philipp Stojanovic 10-8 where the young European lost his cool towards the end and slammed his stick into the table and broke his cue in a blatant display of bad sportsmanship. Liu calmly won that match and moved onto the semi-finals. Though he has not won a major international event yet, this could be the one for him if he can get by his next opponent, Mika Immonen.
The mighty Mika has been on a unusually long drought from the winner's circle this year. He started off 2011 strong with a win in the USA at The Masters 10-Ball, but since then has failed to reach the final four in several events. This event marks his first final four appearance in a semi-finals in 10 events.
Mika has been tested in a big way twice already with escapes at 10-9 and 10-9 again with Jech Limen of Philippines and Chris Melling of England. Melling gave Mika his only loss in the event in a 9-2 thrashing. Immonen made two heart pounding runouts from 8-9 behind to win yesterday over the current Europe #1.
"I've been going through alot of internal challenges and changes on and off the table. But it's going to help me in the long run. I know it", explained Mika. "I just need to bring in the same focus and energy into my next matches."
If Immonen and Orcullo win they will face off in a Europe vs Asia match-up. Otherwise it could be all China with Liu and Wu. Matches air live on Balls Channel 34 and later on Studio 23.
Contact Dragon Promotions at predatorchampionships@gmail.com for more info on event.
