 Jung-Lin Chan |
BALI, INDONESIA -- Taiwan's Jun-ling Chang 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, Chia-ching Wu, 11-9, in the semifinals to arrange the titular showdown with Chang, a 13-12 winner over compatriot Ching-shun Yang 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 Ching-shun Yang 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 Fong-pang Chao of Taiwan, Singapore's Bernard Tey and Ibrahim Amir of Malaysia.
