By REYNALD MAGALLON
Chezka Centeno and Rubilen Amit breezed through their oppositions to advance to the round of 16 while Carlo Biado and Jeffrey de Luna punched their tickets to the round of 32 in the 2024 WPA 9-ball China Open in Shanghai.
Amit wasted no time in flaunting the same form that won her the WPA World 9-ball crown two weeks ago, dispatching Serbian counterpart Bojana Sarac, 7-5, and Indonesian Silviana Lu, 7-2, to qualify through the winner’s bracket.
Centeno, likewise, hardly broke a sweat in the preliminaries, thrashing New Zealand’s Denise Wilkinson, 7-2, before dominating Japan’s Yuki Hiraguchi, 7-1.
In the round-of-16 being played at presstime, the 42-year-old Amit is facing off against Austria’s Jasmin Ouschan, who once defeated her in the world 9-ball championship semifinals back in 2019, while Centeno drew veteran and Asian 9-ball winner Chou Chieh-Yu.
In the men’s side, Biado opened his campaign in style with a 9-4 victory over New Zealand’s Matthew Edwards, 9-4, before overcoming the challenge from The Netherlands’ Marco Teutscher, 9-7.
Unlike Biado, however, de Luna had to crawl his way to the round-of-32 through the loser’s bracket after dropping a 9-5 decision against Estonia’s Denis Grabe. De Luna, who was actually off to a good start with 9-5 win over China’s Xu Xiaocong in the first round, recovered in the lower bracket with a pulsating 9-7 victory over Iran’s Air Falahati.
Not as fortunate, however, was Dennis Orcollo, who despite a 9-3 opening win over American Michael Yednak, 9-3, got knocked out to the lower bracket with a pulsating, 9-8 defeat to Joshua Filler.
He then lost to China’s Shi Wenhai, 9-4, for the last qualifying spot to the Round of 32.
