Manalo fiery surge sweeps Bata

TAIPEI — Proving he’s up to the task, Marlon Manalo sustained his giant-killing spree, beating Efren "Bata" Reyes with an emphatic 11-4 victory to advance to the quarterfinal round of the World Pool Championship at the World Trade Center here Friday.

Playing with so much confidence and showing grace under pressure, the 28-year-old Manalo cashed in on Reyes’ uncharacteristic miss on the red 3 right on the first rack to go 1-up then dominated the entire match to the chagrin of the former champion’s millions of fans.

And just when Reyes was trying to mount a fightback from a 4-10 deficit in what could’ve been a great comeback by the greatest cue master to ever play the game, the 1999 world champion saw the cue ball hit the rail on his break on the 14th rack, before rolling into the corner pocket.

Taking the cue, Manalo effortlessly knocked in the remaining seven balls with relative ease, including the 9-ball on the corner pocket, then went straight to the crestfallen Reyes for the traditional handshake.

With victories over Taiwan’s top player Yang Ching-shun in the first round of the knockout phase and over world No.1 Francisco "Django" Bustamante Thursday, the 2000 Asian snooker champion must now have instilled fear on his next opponent as he vies for a spot in the semis and then in the finals and a crack at the top $75,000 purse.

He faces Marcus Chamat in the quarters today with the Swede bet advancing with an 11-5 rout of Thorsten Schober, the German ace who bundled out the other Filipino contender Lee Van Corteza in the Last 64.

Meanwhile, Dennis Orcullo failed to rise from a 0-7 deficit and bowed to Taiwan’s Chang Pei-wei, 5-11, in their own side of the duel of the annual event aired "live" on STAR Sports.

Rodolfo Luat, seeking to keep the Philippines’ bid alive in the talent-laden upper bracket, was also slugging it out with another Taiwanese, Kang Ching-ching, at presstime.

Earlier, Fil-Canadian Alex Pagulayan barged into the quarterfinals ahead of everybody else when he pulled off an 11-7 victory over youthful Huang Chien-Che of Taiwan at the start of the race-to-11 Last 16 matches.

A crucial bank shot on the black 8 rolled into the corner pocket, leaving Pagulayan an easy spot on the 9-ball for the win that gave the 26-year-old spiked-haired cue artist the first berth in the quarterfinal round of the $350,000 event.

Reyes had hoped to follow suit after winning the lag, but after sinking Nos. 1 and 2, he surprisingly made a thin shot on No. 3, the ball lipping out of the corner pocket and enabling Manalo to steal the rack.

Flawless on the break and accurate on his pocketing, Manalo piled up racks after racks and went 4-0 up. Although Reyes took the next rack after cleverly declining Manalo’s push shot, the sentimental favorite again missed on an unobstructed shot on the orange 5 on the corner pocket, giving Manalo another rack, the momentum and the chance to pull away.

He did as Manalo took the next two to sit on a 7-1 cushion, surrendered the ninth but won the next three when Reyes lost in a brief battle of safety shots on the 10th rack. — Dante Navarro