Champ Rubilen Amit: Basketball’s loss is billiards’ gain

MANILA, Philippines – Growing up, newly-crowned world 10 ball champion Rubilen Amit loved basketball. She dreamt about being a fine basketball player but as fate would have it, she didn’t get the needed height that would make her succeed in the “tall man’s game." Truly engrossed with dropping the ball in a hole, she shifted first into golf but eventually settled on pocket billiards, which she learned to play when she was 12. And the rest, as they say, is history for the 4’11 Amit, who went on to win second place honors at the 2007 women’s world 9-ball championship and capture three gold medals at the Southeast Asian Games before topping the 2009 JBETpoker.net Women’s World 10-Ball Championship. “Talagang mahilig ako sa basketball. Iyong cousins ko basketball players na ngayon kasi tumangkad sila eh ako hindi so medyo nag-shift ako. From basketball, nalipat sa billiards ang love ko," the petite cuemaster told 24 Oras on Monday. Amit stood the tallest among 48 of the world's finest women pool players in the prestigious 10-Ball competition played out in front of her countrymen.
After nosing out the Black Widow Jeanette Lee in the quarterfinals and eight-time Japanese Player of the Year Akimi Kajitani in the semis, the diminutive Amit completed her amazing run with a 10-4 finals win over two-time women’s World 9-Ball Champion Shin Mei Liu of Chinese Taipei. “Talagang feel ko yung pressure dahil andaming taong nanood and I wanted to put up a good show," recalled Amit, who won $20,000 for winning the tournament. The feat placed Amit among the elite of Philippine pool, joining the likes of fellow world titlists Efren Reyes, Django Bustamante, Ronnie Alcano, Alex Pagulayan, and Dennis Orcollo. - GMANews.TV