It was a battle filled with dead-on jump shots, perfect placing and punctuated by awed gasps from the audience at the Singapore leg of the Guinness 9-ball Tour. In their first meeting, current world 9-ball champion Dennis Orcollo of the Philippines edged out defending Taiwanese champion Chang Jung-lin in a 16-rack Race to 9 round robin showdown that had the audience at the edge of their seats on Jul 25.

Ricky Yang of Indonesia, who was unlucky enough to be the only one drawn in the same group as the 2 titans, put up a valiant fight but eventually fell 8-9 to Orcollo and 6-9 to Chang earlier in the day.

Robocop Vs Pool Devil
UrbanWire caught both players before the game and asked them how they felt about going up against each other.

“Chang is a very tough opponent – he wins all the time!” the 29-year-old World Pool Association world champion told UrbanWire.

“But I’ll do my best. Everywhere I go, I’m always ready to play,” he declared.

Chang was brimming with confidence about the Singapore leg, but didn’t come across as being cocky at all.

“I’ll give my utmost to my game and I’ll just take things as they come,” he said in Mandarin.

Chang, also known by his nickname Pool Devil, started off relatively strong, taking the first 2 racks with a breathtaking jump shot to pocket the 2-ball in the second rack, which elicited a collective “Whoa!” from the audience.

But Orcollo, who goes by the moniker Robocop, was policing the table and making sure that the Pool Devil wouldn’t steal the victory so easily.

He took advantage of a miscue on the 6-ball by Chang to clear the remaining balls and scored a golden break in the next rack to level the score at 2-all.

Chang refused to be outdone and responded with a stunning golden break of his own, climbing to a 3-2 advantage, then doubling his lead by taking the next rack as well.

Orcollo had told UrbanWire in the pre-match interview that he was “under a lot of pressure to live up to the name of World No. 1”. He fought back like a world champ, capitalising on a dry break by Chang and clearing the table to level at 4-all, following which each player took turns to take 2 racks at a time till the score was 6-all.

During the 13th rack, Chang served Orcollo’s his first lead of the game on a platter after a careless miss on the 1-ball positioned the 2-ball and the 9-ball perfectly for Arcollo to use the 2 to slot the 9 home effortlessly. The score gap was widened to 6-8 as Orcollo cleared the table upon break in the next rack.

But just when Orcello was looking unstoppable, a scratch by him in the 15th frame allowed Chang a glimmer of hope as the scoreboard read 7-8. Orcollo strengthened all his resolve and cleared the table in the final rack to win 7-9, putting an end to Chang’s 4-leg victory streak.

Orcello entered the final 8 and beat Fu Jian Bo of China 9-6 on Jul 26 in the quarterfinals. He will face Taiwanese player Yang Ching Shun in the semi-finals on Jul 27 at 1.30pm. Yang had earlier routed Genting leg runner-up Antonio Gabica 9-3 in a one-sided match that saw him taking the last 5 racks of the game.

Bowing out Gracefully

When UrbanWire spoke to Chang after the match, he seemed relatively unaffected by being denied the chance to lift the trophy in Singapore.

“It’s no big deal, really. I just had a little bit of bad luck. The breaking point of my game was during Orcollo’s runs which took the score from 6-4 to 6-6,” he said tiredly.

“This loss doesn’t affect my confidence level for Jakarta,” he added, referring to the grand finals in Jakarta, which the overall top 10 players will compete in.

Pool Competition in the middle of a shopping mall?

This year’s Guinness 9-ball Tour was held at Velocity @ Novena Square with a restricted access TV tent outside the mall and 4 competition tables erected right smack in the middle of the mall.

It is the first-ever international pocket billiards competition to take place in a shopping centre.

Elgen Kua, Corporate Communications Manager of organiser ESPN Star Sports, told UrbanWire that this was to give the players “more public exposure”.

Unfortunately, this proved to be quite a distraction for most players, as the noises of squeaking sneakers, people chatting loudly on their mobile telephones and even the occasional curious kid who toddled up to the competition table affected their ability to concentrate. All this was despite the signs being put up all around, urging shoppers to keep the noise level down and to avoid flash photography.

Chang was one such player whose performance was visibly affected by the goings-on around him when he was playing in the shopping mall.

“I felt that the crowd was a little too close for comfort,” he complained.

21 out of 24 round robin matches were played on these tables.

Other Results

In the earlier round robin matches, Singapore’s best hope, 23-year-old Chan Keng Kwang, beat former world champion, 19-year-old Wu Chia Ching of Taiwan 9-7 by overcoming an accidental self-snook with an excellent jump shot over the 9-ball to pocket the 8-ball before sinking the 9. Unfortunately, due to point difference, the teenager took his place in the last 8 and beat World No. 6 Joven Bustamante of The Philippines 9-4 to enter the semi-finals.

Things in round robin Group G got rather complicated when all 3 players, Ibrahim bin Amir of Malaysia, Alex Pagulayan from the Philippines and Thai Nilwat Kanjanasri got embroiled in a 3-way tie with identical scores. After drawing lots, Pagulayan was chosen to advance into the quarterfinals where he dashed Vietnamese hopes by ousting Nguyen Anh Tuan 9-4.

Pagulayan and Wu will compete in another Filipino-Taiwanese semi-final at noon on Jul 27.

The finals will then be held at 3pm.

The semi-finals and final matches of the Guinness 9-ball Tour’s Singapore leg will be broadcast Live on ESPN Star Sports at the following timeslots on Jul 27:

noon – Semi-final 1 [Alex Pagulayan (PHI) vs. Wu Chia Ching (TPE)]

1.30pm – Semi-final 2 [Dennis Orcollo (PHI) vs. Yang Ching Shun (TPE)]

3pm – Finals