LEE Van Corteza won a pulsating, down-the-wire 8-7 duel over compatriot Roberto Gomez early yesterday morning (Tuesday night in the US) at the start of the $250,000 Predator World 10-Ball Championship at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Trailing 5-7 in the best-of-8 series, Gomez gamely fought back to tie the match at 7-all and seemed poised for victory after sinking the 1 and 7-balls on his break in the 15th rack.
But the win slipped through the Pinoy “Superman’s” fingers when he missed a 3-9 combination on the right corner pocket, enabling Corteza to return to the table to seal the deal, wrapping up the match after one hour and 49 minutes of intense play.
In contrast, countryman Jeffrey de Luna had an easy time dispatching Hong Kong’s Bu Hong 8-1 to advance to the winner’s bracket of the double round elimination competition offering a mouth-watering prize of $60,000 (roughly P3.3 million) to the champion.
Also relegated to the loser’s bracket with Gomez was Roland Garcia, who absorbed a 1-8 whitewash at the hands of Austria’s Max Lechner.
Corteza, a five-time Southeast Asian Games gold medalist, and De Luna, who won a silver medal in the 2006 Doha Asian Games, will be up next against European veterans with sterling credentials.
Corteza takes on German former world 8 and 10-ball champion Ralf Souquet, the reigning European 8-ball champion who beat American Nathan Wallace 8-5 in his opening match.
De Luna is up against Finnish legend Mikka “The iceman” Immonen, a former world 9 and 10-ball champion, who topped Vietnam’s Quoc Hoang Duong 8-5.
Both aiming to stay alive in the loser’s bracket, Gomez was up against Wallace while Garcia was up against Singapore’s Desmond Goh.
In a nip-and-tuck affair marked by safeties and good placements, Corteza appeared to have the upper hand early, surging to a 2-0 lead only for Gomez to come roaring back, taking the next three frames for a 3-2 lead.
With neither of them giving any quarter, the two fought to four deadlocks, the last at 7-all before the cool and calculating Corteza pounced on Gomez’s miscue in the 15th rack.
