MAZON WINS 2010 GUINNESS WORLD SERIES OF POOL TITLE WITH AMAZING COMEBACK
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 01 Aug 2010
Jundel Mazon, one of the lesser lights in the star-studded Philippine pool line-up emerged as the newest sensation from the country which is regarded as the epicenter of pool by winning the first ever 2010 Guinness World Series of Pool 10-Ball Championships at Mal Taman Anggrek in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.
Mazon who scored a come-from-behind victory over fancied Darren Appleton of Britain in the semi finals did one better in the finals against hometown favorite Irsal Nasution who, cheered on by a capacity crowd, raced to a 5-1 lead in the race to ten and looked set to carve his name in the record books.
But Mazon, who is in his mid-thirties, had other ideas and playing aggressively and banking on his exquisite safety shots began to put the pressure on the comparatively experienced Nasution.
Nasution took early control of the match capitalizing on a missed bank shot on the green 6 ball from Mazon to go ahead in the 3rd rack 2-1 before the Indonesian giant-killer who looked sharper and calmer stepped up his game en route to rattle off four racks in a row for what appeared to the hometown fans as an overwhelming 5-1 advantage.
At that point nobody really gave Mazon a chance but like he proved in the semifinals the unheralded Filipino proved his ability at playing under pressure and slowly but surely clawed back into the match while Nasution, short on experience in fierce international competition saw his game suddenly fall apart.
The Indonesian?s solid, aggressive play in the early stages of the match was replaced by uncharacteristically weak safeties and poor pocketing. While Nasution?s game unraveled, Mazon in contrast picked up his rhythm and string together an amazing run of eight straight racks to overtake Nasution en route to a classic 10-5 triumph to pocket the top prize of US $40,000 while the hometown boy Nasution earned $10,000.
In a post match interview Mazon said ?I could not have hoped for a better result. For sure, it was a difficult uphill battle but I was able to regain my composure in the middle stages of the match. From there, I was on a roll and it was then that I knew I had a chance. So I just kept on pushing until the very end. After this extremely grueling competition, I plan on going home, probably relax for a month or two before going overseas again to compete in the 2010 US Open championship.?
The two relatively unknown players surprised everyone with their incredible play all throughout the four day tournament organized by ESPN STAR Sports. The Filipino defeated a number of pool heavyweights such as England?s Darren Appleton, 8 ? 6 in the semifinals and Japan?s top-seed Naoyuki Oi, 8 ? 6 in the quarters to barge into the final round.
Not to be outdone, Nasution, also took down a number of top cue masters on his road to the finals with victories versus 2004 WPA World 9 ball Champion Alex Pagulayan, 8 ? 4, former double world Champion Ronato Alcano, 8 ? 5, and 2007 Guinness 9ball Tour Grand Champion Chang-Jung Lin to book his finals encounter with the Filipino.
Pool patrons Aristeo ?Putch? Puyat and Perry Mariano both expressed their joy that despite the loss of the big name stars such as Alcano, Orcollo and Pagulayan among others a lesser known Filipino came through to reinforce the Philippines claim as the dominant force in world pool.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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