Second Time Lucky For Van Corteza

LEE Van Corteza cruised into the 2006 Philippines World Pool Championship with a fantastic display in the fourth qualifying tournament.

The 27-year-old Filipino, who hails from Davao City, was rarely tested and defeated American Max Eberle 9-2 in a one-sided final.

It was second time lucky for Van Corteza (pictured right) as he only narrowly missed out on winning the first qualifying competition on Saturday, October 28 when he suffered a semi-final loss against Nieh Rong-chih of Chinese Taipei.

Van Corteza, who reached the last 32 of the 2003 World Pool Championships and the last 64 in both 2002 and 2004, only lost 14 racks from his six matches to become the third player from the Philippines to claim a qualifying spot.

Comfortable victories against Mishal Al Kundari (Kuwait), Daniel Chua (Singapore), Yusoke Kuroda (Japan), Chien Chun-ju (Chinese Taipei), Pan Shen-ping (Chinese Taipei) and Eberle means Van Corteza will take his place in group 9.

He will be quietly confident of securing his spot in the knock-out stages for the fourth time in five years as he is in a group with Thomas Engert (Germany), Stuart Lawler (Australia) and Philipp Stojanovic (Croatia).

Qualifying tournament final results so far

Event 1 - Roberto Gomez (PHI) bt Naoyuki Oi (JPN) 9-6
Event 2 - Nien Rong-chih (TPE) bt Chien Chin-ju (TPE) 9-4
Event 3 - Eduardo Villanueva (PHI) bt Hisash Kusano (JPN) 9-2
Event 4 - Lee Van Corteza (PHI) bt Max Eberle (USA) 9-2

Click here to see full results from the fourth qualifying tournament

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