I caught the semi-final and final rounds of the Vietnam leg of the San Miguel Asian 9-ball tour on TV yesterday, where Efren ‘bata’ Reyes, was out there weaving his unique brand of magic and putting a show for the pool fans all over Asia.
In the semi-final, Reyes went up against an Indian, who, from the looks of it, was completely spellbound as he made mistake after mistake during the course of the match. Reyes was unforgiving as he took advantage of all his opponent’s miscues in posting a lopsided 11-1 victory.
It was however a different scenario in the final round as Reyes was pitted against another former world champion in ‘the Cold Face Killer’, Fong Pang Chao. Chao quickly took advantage of a rack where Reyes got a “dry break” (break shot wherein a player fails to pocket a ball), to jump up to a quick 4-1 lead in the alternating-break format. Reyes however fought back and also used a dry break by Chao to tie the score at 4-all. The score was still tied at 5 racks apiece when Chao again made his move, taking advantage of a rare miss from Reyes (where he was trying to pocket the 4-ball on the corner pocket, but the shot was too thin) to post a seemingly insurmountable 9-5 lead in the race to 11 final. This, however, turned out to be the set up to the magical finale by the man aptly called as ‘the Magician’
With an imposing 9-5 lead and with the break shot in the next rack, Chao had the opportunity to probably put the match out of Reyes’ reach by going up 10-5. Unfortunately for him, the cue ball got kicked into the middle pocket on his break shot. Reyes quickly used that scratch as his cue to run out the rack and get himself back in the game. Reyes also held serve in the next rack to cut Chao’s lead to 9-7. In the following rack, Chao uncharacteristically missed on a long shot at the 2-ball to give Reyes a crack at closing the gap further. Reyes again wasted no time in punishing Chao for his mistake to take that rack and move within a rack of tying the score. In the next rack, Reyes magically produced a golden break (break shot wherein the 9-ball is pocketed), much to the delight of the crowd, to tie the score at 9-all and effectively turned the championship into a best of three affair. With pressure mounting, Chao found himself unable to pocket a ball on his next break to give the table back to Reyes. The Magician promptly cleaned up the table to give himself his first lead of the match and move to within a rack of the championship, 10-9. With the break in the next rack, Reyes had the opportunity of taking the crown without having Chao return to the table, but he came up short as he got a dry break. Chao however, failed to capitalize on this as he gave the table back to Reyes, and this time there was no denying the magician as he pocketed the remaining balls to win the match 11-9 and wrap up his third straight leg victory in the tour.
I am of course among the millions who are hoping that Reyes will carry this momentum not only through the last three legs of the tour (Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila) but over to the World championships this coming July as well.
At one point during Reyes’ masterful semi-final dominance, commentator Anthony Suntay said, “Lately, there’s been a lot of people talking about his game declining. I don’t think so...”
You know what? I don’t think so too...
Trivia: I read somewhere that the reason he has ‘bata’ as his nickname was because when he was still a kid playing in the pool halls of Angeles, there was another player there with the same name (an adult), and so to distinguish, people there referred to the magician as ‘efren bata’ and to the other guy as ‘efren tanda’. Somehow, the name stuck.
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