Corteza enters finals of Guinness 9Ball Tour's Jakarta leg

Newly crowned Philippine national champion Lee Van Corteza gained a spot in the finals Sunday of the 2007 Guinness 9-Ball Tour's Jakarta leg with a heart-stopping 13-11 victory over compatriot Dennis Orcollo. The 28-year-old Orcollo was so confident at the start of the match that he immediately took a 4-0 lead against Corteza in the match being held at the Sultan Hotel of the Indonesian capital. But the table turned against Orcollo as Corteza of the Negros Billiards Stable run out the fifth rack and posted a 9-0 rally, demoralizing Orcollo whom even the Star Sports narrators said could not possibly get out from what seems to be a very deep hole. Orcollo, however, made a comeback and even tied the match a 10-all in the race-to-eleven format, forcing the organizers to use two-rack advantage, a rarely utilized tie-breaking format in 9-ball tournaments, to settle the match. Orcollo even thought that he has won the semifinal match when he dropped the nine ball and went up 12-11 in the face-off. He even went to Corteza and asked for the traditional congratulatory handshake. After a brief stoppage in play to explain the rule to the contestants, the game resumed and Orcollo suffered a scratch on a pivotal 1-7 combination that paved the way for Corteza to clean up the table and posted the 13-11 win. "We really had trouble with the racking in the TV table. There were spaces in between the balls during racking," Orcollo said. “That was the reason why there were a lot of dry breaks in our match. But I have to give it to Van Van, he was able to perform better when it mattered which gave him his well deserved win," he added. Corteza on the other hand said: "It was just all luck. I hope that this luck will still follow me in my finals match later in the afternoon." Corteza will face the winner of the all-Taiwanese semifinals between Wu Chia-Ching and Chang Jun Lin in the finals. The top ten finishers in the Guinness 9-Ball Tour Order of Merit will automatically qualify for World Pool Championship which is slated this November in Manila. - GMANews.TV