Takano And Andam Win Last Two Qualifiers
By James Kon

Manila - Japan's Tomoo Takano and Filipino Leonardo Andam have both secured the 2006 Philippines World Pool Championships which will start at the Philippine International Convention Centre in Manila tomorrow.

Takano will enter as Qualifier Nine after he won the ninth qualification tournament with a 9-6 success against Elvis Perez of the Philippines while Andam beat Japanese player Ryoki Aoki in the final of the 10' and last competition.

His Royal Highness Prince Hj Al-Muhtadee Billah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister in the Prime Minister's Office is placed in Group 10 together with Francisco Bustamante of Philippines who is seeded No 10, Darren Appleton of England and qualifier Jharome Pena of the Philippines.

His Royal Highness will take on Appleton tomorrow (Nov 4), Pena on Monday (Nov 6) and Bustamante on Tuesday (Nov 7). Taiwan's Chin Ju-chen finished as the best `lucky loser' for the man who did not win an event but gained the most points due to his performances throughout the week.

He became qualifier 11 and the Filipino duo of Jharome Pena and Rudy Morta were also guaranteed of their spots in the main event, as qualifiers 12 and 13 respectively.

Meanwhile, Tan Tiong Boon became the first player not from the Philippines or Taiwan to win a qualifying tournament for the world meet.

Each of the previous seven events had been won by players from these two countries but 39-year-old Tan, who comes from Singapore, ended that run with a hard-fought 9-7 victory in the final against local lad Jharome Pena.

That followed successes against Joyme S Vicente and Mohamed Al Hosani (both UAE), Yusoke Kuroda (Japan), Raymond Cruz (Canada) and Pan Shen-ping (Taiwan) enroute to the final. This will be Tan's sixth appearance in the latter stages of the world meet in seven years and he will be looking to improve on his best performance of reaching the last 64, which he has done on three occasions - 2000, 2001 and 2003. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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