Corteza takes silver in centerpiece 9-ball

NAKHON RATCHASIMA – The Philippines, home to three world 9-ball champions in Efren “Bata” Reyes, Alex Pagulayan and Ronnie Alcano, settled for silver in billiards centerpiece event at the close of the 24th SEA Games billiards and snooker competitions at the Sama Thani Hall here yesterday.

The RP team lost its stranglehold of the 9-ball singles in the biennial regional meet as Lee Van Corteza bowed to Indonesian Ricky Yang, 8-11, in the final.

Winner of this particular event a number of times in the past, Corteza ran into a maze of errors early on and never recovered, enabling the Indon to run away with the gold medal.

Team RP also won a silver courtesy of Mary Ann Basas in women’s 6-red snooker singles and produced three bronzes through Iris Ranola in women’s 6-red snooker singles, Rubilen Amit in 8-ball pool singles and the pair of Benjamin Guevarra Jr. and James Al Ortega in men’s snooker doubles.

Yang, Indonesia’s top player, took command early by racing to a 4-1 lead.

Corteza actually recovered his bearing towards the end but Yang hung tough by holding on his breaks in the race-to-11 finale under the alternate-break format.

“I fall behind by three racks early and it’s hard to overcome in this short match,” said Corteza.

Yang, 35, from Sungei Brambang, Indonesia, had a golden break in the 15th rack to move up by three 9-6. He sat on the hill on the 17th and closed the match on the 19th both on run-outs.

Corteza gained some rhythm by winning two straight racks starting on the 12th only to get off-track again on a dry break on the 14th.

Yang pounced on the opportunity with a cleanup followed up by the golden break and run-outs in his next two breaks to score his breakthrough victory.

His biggest accomplishment before was a runner-up finish in the 2006 Asian 9-Ball Tour Jakarta leg.