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Marvelous Starts In Fine Style
MARVELOUS Marlon Manalo, one of the fancied local picks, got his 2006 Philippines World Pool Championship campaign off to a good start as he got the better of relative Canadian unknown Nicolas Guimond of Canada by an 8-5 scoreline.
Manalo, 31, from
Mandaluyong
City, was a semi-finalist last year in
Kaohsiung
and is tipped to improve on that finish on home soil.
He said:
“I was a little bit nervous but that was the added pressure of playing at home.
When I’m abroad I just play my game but I’m now playing for my countrymen. I need more improvement though as I made two mistakes on long cut shots.
"I'm
about 90 per cent of my game now but every time I go to the table I don’t know how I’m going tp play. I’ll try and go deeper in this tournament than last year though. I should, I must!”
Elsewhere, Maltese speedster ‘Tornado’
Tony
Drago came a cropper on the main TV table at the hands of Taiwanese player Liu Cheng-chuan, who won by a
score of 8-6.
Drago found himself 7-4 down at one point but Liu composed himself to wrap it up and leave himself in with a good chance of making the knock-out stages.
Finnish star Mika Immonen, the 2001 World Champion, was made to fight hard for his 8-7 victory against rising European Marco Tschudi.
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