Biado, Centeno, Amit end respective billiards title bids

MANILA, Philippines -- In all sports, including billiards, you win some and lose some.

It happened Tuesday on world champions Carlo Biado, Chezka Centeno and Rubilen Amit, who each suffered painful defeats in their respective tournaments both coincidentally staged in St. Louis, Missouri, and fell short of adding more titles to their massive collections.

Biado, a two-time world nine-ball king, a 10-ball titlist, a US Open winner and a World and Southeast Asian Games gold medalist, ousted Dutch Maco Teutscher, 10-7, in the Round of 16. But he succumbed to unattached Wiktor Zielinski, 10-8, in the quarterfinals to crash out in the WPA Men’s 8-Ball World Championship title hunt.

The defeat was especially painful for Biado, who was hoping to seize the only world crown that has eluded him — 8-ball.

Centeno suffered the same fate in the Seybert’s Women’s Open Last 16 with stinging defeats to Japanese Chihiro Kawahara, 4-3, 1-4, 4-2, and Austrian legend Jasmin Ouschan, 4-1, 3-4, 4-1, respectively.

Like Biado, Centeno and Amit were decorated pool players themselves, with the former being a two-time world 10-ball queen, and Amit a two-time world 10-ball champion and one-time world nine-ball winner.

But as in every discipline, even the best falls down sometimes.

And the Philippine troika was just no exception.