Allison Fisher worked out all of the angles on day three
The elimination rounds are now complete at the 2005 Amway Cup and the field has been reduced to six players. In the final four matches to determine those who would stay until the end Allison Fisher defeated Jeanette Lee 7-4, Ga-Young Kim overruled Shu-Han Chang 7-5, Karen Corr demolished Shin-Mei Liu 7-0 and Yuan-Chun Lin busted Kajitani Akimi 7-3.
Since there were ties in both brackets the first tie-breaker was used to determine our winners. This tie-breaker was who had won the most total racks throughout the week. Using this method the players who progressed from Bracket 'A" were Karen Corr, Shin-Mei Liu and Ga-Young Kim with Kim having the most rack wins and therefore gaining the honor of being placed in the semi-finals while Corr and Liu will be placed in the quarter-final bracket.
This brought about the following scoring situation in the two brackets:
The 'B' Bracket finds Allison Fisher resting unchallenged in first while Wendy Jans and Yuan-Chun Lin will participate in the quarter-finals. Now the two brackets are eliminated and we are in a standard tournament format. Our first quarter-final match will be between Karen Corr and Yuan-Chun Lin and the second quarter-final will match Shin-Mei Liu against Wendy Jans.
But there is more than the normal news here in Taipei. The Amway Cup, an invitational event throughout its history, will next year become the WPA Women's World Championships and will feature a 48-player field chosen from players throughout the world. This championship will be televised live and will be a serious improvement over the somewhat spotty record of the previous women's world titles which have had a history of being sometimes played and sometimes canceled. The event will be held in May of 2006 here in Taipei.
UPDATE:
The evening session for Day 3 is now complete and our finalists have been decided. The first match of the night saw Karen Corr retiring Yuan-Chun Lin 7-3. Shin-Mei Liu then ended Wendy Jan's run 7-5. Wendy and Lin earned 5-6 honors for their efforts.
Then Allison Fisher dusted Karen Corr 7-3 as Ga-Young Kim bettered Shin-Mei Liu 7-2. This sets up our final matches for Monday when Allison Fisher and Ga-Young Kim do battle for the championship and Shin-Mei Liu and Karen Corr will contest to decide third place.
Day two of the Amway Cup has seen its share of upsets that put many of the top players in doubt as to their chances of surviving through to the final four. The day began with Shu-Han Chang defeating Karen Corr 7-5. Wendy Jans then polished off Akimi Kajitani 7-3. A major upset occurred when Yuan-Chun Lin dominated Allison Fisher. Yuan-Chun won the first game of the set in a back and forth match, but then took control and ran four straight racks while Allison could only watch from her chair. The next time Allison stood at the table was after nothing fell on the sixth break of the set and she by then trailed in the race to seven 5-0. Even the great Duchess could not overcome such an advantage and Yuan-Chun soon celebrated a 7-3 win over Fisher.
Jennifer Barretta then proved she is much more than just a pretty face by destroying the defending champion Shin-Mei Liu 7-3 and Jennifer Chen won out over Jeanette Lee 7-5. Karen Corr's troubles worsened next when she lost her second match of the day to Jasmin Ouchin 7-4. Shin-Mei Liu regained her balance in the next match by besting Ga-Young Kim 7-6 and Allison Fisher rebalanced her score sheet by taking down Wendy Jans 7-4.
Jennifer Barretta continued her comeback with another impressive win, taking out Shu-Han Chang 7-3 as Yuan-Chun Lin triumphed over Jennifer Chen 7-1. Akimi Kajitani finally tasted victory by defeating Jeanette Lee 7-4 while Ga-Young Kim rolled over Jasmin Ouchin 7-2.
Allison Fisher then gained revenge for her earlier loss today by blanking Jennifer Chen 7-0 in an effort that saw Allison running 5 racks in a row. Wendy Jans continued her winning ways by showing the door to Yuan-Chun Lin 7-2. Our final two matches of the day found Karen Corr strengthening with a 7-6 squeaker over Ga-Young Kim and Jasmin Ouchin took out Jennifer Barretta 7-1. Play will continue on Sunday beginning at 10:30 AM.
We have updated our scoring lines to reflect the system used in Taipei whereby a win is worth three points and a loss garners one point. Please note that not all players have played the same amount of games and so the point totals do not reflect an equal number of contests between all players.
The day prior to the event was spent in television studios doing out-take shots for the upcoming broadcast and a press conference packed with live television cameras from throughout Asia.
The tournament is a round-robin format where the dozen combatants are broken into two camps of six players each. These two groups will do battle for two and a half days to determine the top two finishers in each group. These four players will then graduate to the final stages.
Day one got off to an early 9:30 AM start and the first three matches of the day all went to hill-hill heartbreakers. Jeanette Lee was the first winner, defeating Yuan-Chun Lin 7-6, followed by Shu-Han Chang's defeat of Jasmin Ouchin by the same 7-6 scoreline. The third close one was Jennifer Chen's narrow escape of Wendy Jans (7-6).
The next three matches had only slightly wider margins. Ga-Young Kim led Jennifer Barretta 4-0 at one point before Barretta clawed back to 4-3. Then Kim pulled away and finally won by the score of 7-4. Jasmin Ouchin met her second loss of the day at the hands of defending champion Shin-Mei Liu 7-4 and Allison Fisher took the wind from Kajitani Akimi's sails 7-5.
The first walkover of the day came next as Karen Corr mastered the table over Jennifer Barretta 7-2. After a brief delay due to a scoring confusion in their match, Jeanette Lee and Wendy Jans continued with Wendy prevailing 7-2. The final two matches of the day found Jennifer Chen defeating Akimi Kajitani 7-3 and Shin-Mei Liu prevailing over Shu-Han Chang.
At the end of day one the group scores are as follows:
The Chinese Taipei Billiard Association has announced the line-up for the 2005 Amway Cup to be held on May 5th – 8th at the Taipei Municipal Sports Centre.
