By REYNALD MAGALLON
Rubilen Amit recovered from an early deficit and pulled off a 2-4, 4-3, 2-4, 4-1,4-1 victory over Russian Kristina Tkach to advance to the finals of the 2024 WPA Women’s World 9-Ball Championship in Hamilton, New Zealand on Saturday, Sept. 7.
Down 2-1 at match point, the 42-year-old pool master dug deeper into her bag of tricks and breezed through the last two sets to complete the reversal and set up a finals match with Chinese Siming Chen in the $175,000 tiff.
Tkach actually looked poised to take the win in the fourth frame but committed a foul on the 4-ball, allowing Amit to get back to the table.
The veteran that she is, Amit took full advantage from that mistake and went on to clear the table in the next three racks to tie the contest at 2-2.
Riding the momentum of the fourth set win, Amit showed no letup and dominated the decider in what could be one of the best games of the tournament.
Amit’s semifinals victory was as dramatic as her 3-2 triumph over Taiwanese Wei Tzu-Chien in the quarterfinals.
The Filipina, who finished second in the 2007 edition of the tournament, had to buck a slow start before prevailing 0-4,4-0,4-0,1-4,4-2 to make it to her third semifinals appearance in the tournament.
Meanwhile, her finals opponent Chen easily dispatched Chihiro Kawahara, 4-3,4-0,4-0 in their own semis pairing.
