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Lining Sets Up Clash With Former World Champion
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ANTONIO Lining will now face former World Champion Mika Immonen after coming through the sixth qualifying tournament.
Lining (pictured right), a 43-year-old veteran, hails from Quezon City, Philippines and did not have far to travel to play in the qualifiers, which were held at the Star Billiards Center in Grace Village, Quezon City.
In the final, Lining defeated Huang Chune-wei of Chinese Taipei 9-4 as Filipino players continued their early dominance of the event and four out of the first six qualifiers have now come from the Philippines.
With more than 120 players entering the qualifying round, the standard has been very high and Lining had to be at his best to win. He scraped past Frenchman John Berille 7-6 in the first phase before he recorded a similar triumph against Filipino Jharome Pena in round two.
Further victories against local players Leonardo Andam, Florencio Banar and John Salazar saw Lining reach the final and he held his nerve to book his place in the main event, which starts on Saturday, November 4 at the Philippine International Convention Center.
Lining reached the quarter-finals of the World Pool Championship in 1998 but failed to make it out of the group stages last year in Kaohsiung.
He faces a difficult task this year as he will go into group 11 where he will meet 11th seed and 2001 World Champion Mika Immonen (Finland) and highly-rated Europeans David Alcaide (Spain) and Marco Tschudi (Switzerland).
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
Event 5 - Hsia Hun-kai (TPE)
bt Rody Morta (PHI) 9-7
Event 6 - Antonio Lining (PHI)
bt Huang Chune-wei (TPE) 9-4
Click here
to see full results from the sixth qualifying tournament
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