Bata on course for second title in row

Efren "Bata" Reyes remained on course for a second straight crown in the San Miguel Asian 9-Ball Tour 2004, trouncing Alok Kumar of India, 11-1, yesterday and advancing to the finals of the $50,000 event at the Nguyen Du Sports Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Reyes put the pressure on his rival early on, taking the first three racks of their race-to-11 duel then pounced on Kumar’s couple of bad shots in the middle game en route to the one-sided victory.

But it didn’t look like one until Kumar, a snooker champion, started to miss what had appeared to be easy shots, the first in the fifth rack when, after breaking Reyes’ three-rack run in the fourth, he missed on the green 6 on the corner pocket.

Reyes stole that rack to post a 4-1 lead then after winning the next three with relative ease, the ace Filipino cue master again swooped down on Kumar’s faulty shot on the red 3 that rimmed out in the ninth rack highlighted by a superb exchange of safety shots.

The win lined up Reyes against the winner of the other semis contest pitting Park Shin Young and Chao Pong Fang being played at presstime with the Filipino former world 9-ball champion seeking a second straight victory in the five-leg series after dominating the kickoff leg in Singapore last month.

Reyes, who cruised past Satoshi Kawabata of Japan, 9-3, in the quarterfinals, is actually shooting for a third crown in a row as he also won the last leg of last year’s tour in Manila.

Sanctioned by the Asian Pocket Billiard Union, the San Miguel Asian 9-Ball Tour is organized by ESPN STAR Sports’ Event Management Group (EMG) with San Miguel Beer as title sponsor.

From Vietnam, the tour, which stakes World 9-ball Championship points, goes to Hong Kong next month then to Taipei before winding up in Manila. <