Orcollo cruises to World Pool q’finals

Filipino cue artist Dennis Orcollo cruised to the quarter-finals of the 2012 World Pool Masters last Sunday at the Hala Legionow in Kielce in Southern Poland.
Orcollo stamped his class over world No. 1 Kelly Fisher of England, 8-6.
The Filipino lost the first rack when Fisher got off to a confident start, but Orcollo then proceeded to win the next five racks. Fisher rallied to take the next two before going down 3-6, and then won the next two to make it 5-6.
Orcollo looked somewhat uneasy, but restored his confidence when he won the 12th rack with a confident run-out.
In the next round, Orcollo will meet Mika Immonen of Finland, who brought downed Radoslaw Babica of Poland, 8-7.
“It’s going to be tough in my next match, but I believe I have a great chance to win,” said Orcollo.
Meanwhile, Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan got an early boot in the tournament, as he bowed to Mateusz Sniegocki of Poland, 6-8, in the Final Eight.
Sniegocki became the first player to make it through to the semi-finals after beating Pagulayan.
It was a proper scrap with neither player showing a lot of fluency, and when Pagulayan opened up a 4-1 and then a 5-2 lead, the crowd started to quiet down. Sniegocki then dug deep and cashed in on some sloppy play from Pagulayan to claw back in the match.
A break and run from Sniegocki in the 10th game saw the match go to 5-5. Pagulayan regained the lead in the next rack, but was horrendously out of position with just two balls left on the table, allowing the Pole to make it 6-6.
Snogiecki took the next rack to reach the hill and then played a perfect break and run to reach the semi-finals, wherein he will play either Immonen or Orcollo.
Meanwhile, Nick Van Den Berg of the Netherlands and Wojciech Szewcyk of Poland hurdled their respective assignments to face each other in the round-of-eight.
Ven Den Berg nipped Omar Al Shaheen of Kuwait, 8-4, while Szewcyk edged Ko Pin-Yu of Chinese-Taipei, 8-7.
In other matches, Tony Drago of Malto edged Darren Appleton of England, 8-6, while Karol Skowerski of Poland crushed Shane Van Boening of the United States, 8-2.
The tournament has a total prize fund of $66,000 with the winner getting $20,000 as top purse.