Going into the single elimination phase of the Women's World Championship, there were mostly close matches, some blowouts, and no surprises. None of the top players were upset by qualifiers although there were some close calls.
Wendy Jans and Jasmin Ouschan had the "fortune" to draw each other in the single elimination round. Wendy prevailed again and went on to face Ga Young Kim. The reigning world champion got some fortunate rolls against Jans and complimented them with her usual strong play while she cruised to a 7:2 victory.
Rubilen Amit squeaked by Germany's Diana Stateczny 7:6 leaving Kelly Fisher to carry Europe's banner. Rubilen then gathered herself and blew past Ya Ting Chan from Taipei winning 7:1.
Kim White came through easily winning her match against H.S. Lai 7:3.
The two biggest matches of the day however were Kelly Fisher vs S.C. "Daisy" Chang and P.C. Tsai from Taipei and S.H. Jung from Korea.
Although Kelly won the first game against Daisy she showed no fear and came right back swinging. Daisy plays with a modified snooker cue and has snooker fundamentals. If she was intimidated by playing one of the best Snooker players alive she didn't show it. The players traded racks until Daisy pulled ahead to 6:4. Until this point neither player had really made a mistake. If Kelly played safe Chang played a better one and both were playing superbly. Kelly was having tremendous problems with the break however and came up dry once and scratched twice on her breaks. Down 6:4 Daisy was running out smoothly and just missed an off angle 5:6 combo to give Kelly a sliver of hope. Kelly cleared that rack and then checked the rack for the first time in the match. When she was satisfied she broke and ran to a 5:9 combo. Now at 6:6 Kelly broke and had a shot at the two but missed it trying for better shape on the three. Chang had a tricky shot and she missed it, leaving Kelly a clear shot. With the whole audience hanging on every shot Kelly cleared up a dicey out to move into the quarter finals. Although Kelly put out one of the best players in Taipei she gained a lot of Asian fans in that match as they mobbed her to sigh everything. Kelly signed three pairs of jeans on her way out of the arena.
The other great story was when P.C. "Comet" Tsai overcame a 6:2 deficit to win her match against Korea's S.H. Jung. The audience and the press core were in agony over every shot. In the hill hill game Comet played brilliantly by snookering Jung with a soft kick-safe. Jung responded with a kick-double kiss shot that made the three in the corner. And then missed the next shot. Comet Tsai then ended up dead straight in on the 8 and had to draw the cueball table length for short side shape. She overdrew the cueball and ended up on top of the nine. The audience was in agony. Using the bridge she thinned the nine sending it to the middle of the bottom rail and put the cueball on the top rail in the middle. A textbook safety and as close to perfect as one could play it. Jung then tried to bank the nine and wasn't even close. Tsai closed out the match and the crowd went wild.
Pan Xiao Ting sent Monica Webb to the stands with a 7:2 score.
The remaining players are Ga Young Kim (South Korea), Rubilen Amit (Philippines), Y. Hamanishi from Japan, Kim White (USA), Kelly Fisher (England), Pan Xiao Ting (China), and P.C. Tsai and Shin Mei Liu from Taipei. Tomorrow begins with races to 7, 9, and 11 for the title.
Scores are available at http://www.cues.com.tw/event/world/07wwpc/
