Filipina hopeful Rubilen 'Bingkay' Amit, the 2005 Southeast Asian Games double gold winner blanked host bet S.M. Liu, 5-0, late Thursday to book her seat in the quarter-final round of the 2006 WPA Amway Women's World 9-Ball Championship at the Taipei Stadium in Taiwan.
Earlier, the 24-years-old Amit, playing under the auspices of billiards patron Aristeo 'Putch' Puyat and Billiards and Snooker Congress of the Philippines (BSCP) president Ernesto 'Ernie' Fajardo loss to C.H Lin, 5-4, and Jasmin Ouschan, 5-3, the other day then subduing L. Weaver,5-3, and L. Horsburgh, 5-2, in the afternoon session of the Group D brackets yesterday.
RP billiards patron Aristeo 'Putch' Puyat was very happy informing INQUIRER SPORTS about Amit's triumph: - Amit beat her last round opponent with a stunning 5-0 racks victory," said Puyat, also the long-time benefactor of Filipino billiards great Efren "Bata" Reyes and Francisco "Django" Bustamante.
Billiards and Snooker Congress of the Philippines (BSCP) president Ernesto 'Ernie' Fajardo, on the other hand, also happy when this writer informed him about Amit's victory. " Great," said the soft-spoken and amiable Fajardo.
Amit, a first timer in this high-level US$ 70,000 total prize fund world women's billiards tournament will play in the last 24, Quarter Finals and will be using a Single Elimination, Race to 7, Winner's Break format.
While the Semi-Final is Race to 9, Winner's Break and the finals is Race to 11, Winner's Break.
Meanwhile, defending champion Ga Young Kim of South Korea posted three consecutive wins at the hands of Melisa Herndon (5-3), Hynthios Orfanidis (5-3), and H.S. Lai (5-4) to take charge in the Group A brackets in this event offers US$ 20,000 to the champion, with the runner-up getting $10,000. The losing semifinalists receive $5,000 each.
Keiko Yukawa of Japan still in a roll with three victories in Group B side beating L. Marthinez (5-0), Feldman-Naeff (5-3 ) and M.M. Zhou (5-3).
On the other hand, Helena Thornfeldt of Sweden make two in a row by demolishing Myriam Lafranchise (5-0), B. De Jonge (5-2) after a opening sorry loss to Japanese ace Makiko Takagi (0-5) in the Group C section.
In Group E, Y. Hamanishi nipped Y.C. Lin (5-3) and A. Villar (5-1) remained undefeated even A. Kajitani, winner over J. Chen (5-2) and J. Seaver (5-2) to lead the Group F and S.P. Kao sharing the limelight beating X.T. Pan (5-0) and I. Helvik (5-0) in Group H. S.H. Jung also connects twin wins by crushing T. Nelson (5-1) and N. Surajlall (5-4) in the Group G section.
However, another Filipina entry Johanna 'The Captain' Dee didn't find her luck in the gruelling qualifying round fail to advance in the main proper which draws 48 woman field. Amit is wild card entry in the tournament as sponsor choice.
She loss to Esther S.Y. Kwan (Malaysia) ,7-4, Shu-Ling Lin (Chinese-Taipei), 7-0, and Nouchi Masami (Japan), 7-2, respectively.
In the local shore, Victor Arpilleda won his last four matches to top the ninth episode of the Cue Masters Showdown Wednesday night at Bugsy's Lair Billiards Hall in QC.
The 1997 Jakarta SEA Games gold medal winner became the sixth player to rule an episode of the event supported by PAGCOR.
Fittingly, Arpilleda clinched the title at the expense of eighth episode winner Ronnie Alcano.
Before downing the triple episode winner, Arpilleda took the measures of Christopher Bombita and former winners Gandy Valle and Antonio Gabica. Jerome Pena and Roberto Gomez finished second and third with five and three points respectively to produce a 2-7-4 winning combination in the SMS/Text eGames.
Arpilleda made his presence felt early, beating Eduardo Villanueva, Leonardo Didal, Gomez, Bombita and Allan Soliman to set the pace with five points. The players in the 10th episode are (1) Eduardo Villanueva, (2) Victor Arpilleda, (3) Leonardo Didal, (4) Roberto Gomez, (5) Christopher Bombita, (6) Godofredo Ducanes, (7) Jerome Pena, (8) Gandy Valle, (9) Ronnie Alcano and (10) Antonio Gabica. The reserves are Allan Soliman and Jojo Santos.
