Orcollo ousts Mika as 3 more Pinoys in Last 16

WPA world No.1 Dennis Orcollo of the Philippines crushed 2009 WPA World Ten-Ball Champion Mika Immonen of Finland, 8-5, yesterday to set up a mouthwatering round-of-16 clash against world No. 2 Yukio Akagariyama of Japan in the 2011 Guinness World Series of Pool 10-Ball Challenge in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Sporting an unblemished record heading to the round-of-32, the Filipino cue master came into the highly anticipated match as the clear favorite. But an unforced error on the 7-ball in the opening rack followed by a scratch of his break in the 2nd saw Orcollo trail the Finn, 0-2.

In the fourth rack, a brilliant jump shot over the red-3 to sink the 1-ball came to waste as Orcollo fouled on his approach to the 9-ball after applying too much draw on the cue ball resulting in a scratch. The succeeding table rout gave Immonen a comfortable 3-1 lead.

The 5th rack was the Finn’s turn to buckle under pressure. A straight pot of the 1 ball off the break led to a routine cleanup by the Filipino who then followed it up with a skillful break and run out of the 6th rack to even the score at 3-3.

With both competitors slugging it out from one heated safety battle to another, the turning point for Orcollo finally came in the 8th frame where his patience to maintain a defensive game was rewarded with Immonen coming up with an exposed safety on the 4-ball. Orcollo pounced on his foe’s miscue to go on a three-rack run to stun Immonen.

His confidence broken and visibly upset about his form, Immonen threw in the towel after a final blunder in the 13th rack where he missed a makeable side pocket shot on the 9-ball to drop out of competition and hand the victory to Orcollo.

The upcoming matchup between Orcollo and Akagariyama has pool fans already salivating in anticipation as the ensuing clash between the top two players of the world will most certainly be one for the books.

Meanwhile, over at the adjacent table, things turned ugly for Warren Kiamco who bowed out of the tournament following the Cebuano’s 4-8 loss to 2007 US Open 9-Ball winner Shane Van Boening.

Making up for Kiamco’s misfortunes are three other Filipino bets who also advanced to the round-of-16 including Roberto Gomez who beat Indonesian Ari Hartanto, 8-5; Jech Limen who nipped Stanza Purba of Indonesia, 8-7 and defending champion Jundel Mazon.

Also in the Last 16 are Adam Smith of Canada, Irsal Nasution of Indonesia who upset American Johnny Archer, Kuo Po-Cheng of Chinese-Taipeh and Germany’s Thorsten Hohmann.