FINLAND OUSTS USA, FACES POLAND IN THE WORLD CUP OF POOL FINALS
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 09 Sep 2012
Finland?s pair of former World Pool Champion Mika Immonen and Petri Makkonen rode their luck in the face of costly errors down the stretch by the United States duo of former winners Rodney ?The Rocket? Morris and ?The South Dakota Kid? Shane Van Boening to storm into the finals of the PartyPoker.Net ?World Cup of Pool? with a dramatic 9-7 win at Robinson?s place in Manila.
The Finnish pair who had earlier ousted defending champions Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann and gave crowd favorites Efren ?Bata? Reyes and Francisco ?Django? Bustamante a 9-5 drubbing in the quarter finals held their nerve to wrap up the last two racks after tying the Americans 7-7 when Morris hurried his shot on the 4-ball and Makkonen came up with a great shot to level the score.
An illegal break by Makkonen but another bad miss on the 7-ball by Morris after an exchange of safeties paved the way for Immonen to sink the 2-ball and bury the 9-ball off the rebound in what the Solar Sports TV commentators said was ?outrageous luck? to put the Finns on the hill at 8-7, in the process winning their third rack in a row.
Some excellent safeties were broken when Van Boening sank the 2-ball on an incredible jump shot but the high drama continued as Morris who appeared to be haunted by the 6-ball staying on the edge of the pocket gave Finland a chance to clean-up and await a crack at the winners of the second semi final between Poland and Chinese-Taipei.
Morris and Van Boening looked set to make a run for their second World Cup of Pool title but luck was not on their side which was also undone by the hastiness of Morris in taking some critical shots.
Poland assured a North European finals showdown when they raced to a 5-0 lead over Chinese-Taipei who failed to duplicate the form they showed in the quarter finals to oust fancied England.
The Poles were calm under pressure with Karol Skowerski and Wojciech Szewcyk improving with each match and finishing some challenging run-outs.
The Chinese-Taipei tandem of Han En-hsu & Hsin Ting-chen were never in the game and eventually lost 9-4.
Karol Skowerski, the senior of the two said, ?It's impossible. One week ago we didn't dream about the final. We are just happy to reach the quarterfinal. The semi-final is historical. The final is another level. Maybe we can win this tournament. We weren't nervous. The key for the win is just to enjoy the game and have fun. I think Finland is the same dark horse like us. Nobody expected we would reach the final. It will be very tough match. It will be a different story than the other matches. We just have to play the same, just have fun and enjoy the game and everything will be ok."
18 year-old Szewcyk added, "We are not the strongest possible team. We are not top two in Polish ranking, but what we did here was amazing."
He said "That was the first match I played really well. We are happy with our result and the way we played. We had much less pressure. The first three rounds made us comfortable playing here; at first this was all new, the crowd, shouting after every mistake. Now it's our fourth match, I just get used to it."
Reyes and Bustamante were never in contention even after they clawed back to come wining a rack at 5-6 in the quarter finals.
After Petri Makkonen dogged the 9-ball ball in the opening rack the youngster seemed to grow in confidence helped along by former world champion Mika Immonen.
A ball in hand opportunity for the Finns in the next made the score 7-5 and they took the next two to take the match, Immonen closing it out with a great 7/9 combination.
In a post match interview Immonen said ?We?ve already beaten two World Cup of Pool champions and if we keep it together, break well, keep our composure then we have every chance. We?ve had our moments ? the last match Petri carried me and tonight I carried him.?
Immonen added ?With the crowd here, you have to keep your opponents in their seat and that keeps the crowd quiet. There was a bit of tension in the middle part of the match and we had our moment of doubt, but we made the openings and then closed the door.?
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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