PINOY pool bet Johann Chua banked on key wins over American legend Shane Van Boening and Hong Kong’s Robbie Capito to lead five others into the penultimate round of the IFX Premier League Pool at the Hills Hotel in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina yesterday (Wednesday night in Europe).
Chua opened the seventh day of the tournament organized by British promoter Matchroom with a 5-1 rout of the celebrated Van Boening, then edged Capito 5-4 to move in front of the pack in the event offering a top prize of $20,000 (roughly P1.149 million).
The Hanoi Open champion also nipped Vietnamese Duong Quoc Hang and Singaporean Aloysius Yapp with similar 5-4 scores before falling to former Bosnian European junior champion Sanjin Pehlinvanovic 3-5.
With the four wins, Chua regained top spot with a record of 18 wins and six losses while Capito slipped to second with a 17-7 win-loss slate, followed by former world 9 and 8-ball champion Francesco Sanchez Ruiz (16-8) in third place.
Briton Jayson Shaw was fourth with a 14-10 record with 103 racks won and 80 racks lost, the same marks as German Moritz Neuhausen and Yapp, who, however, had inferior RW and RL tallies of 80-23 and 90-90, respectively, completing the final six in the next round.
Van Boeing, the defending champion, was eliminated after losing all five of his matches, winding up No. 10 with an 11-3 mark.
