Tough day at the office for players, for four players it meant three tough matches for the chance of getting into the final of a world championship.
Popular favourites, Kim Gayoung and Han Yu made a flying start winning their matches by the same margin, an impressive 9/0. Unfortunately for them, they had to meet in the next round. The youngster from the Philippines, Chezta Centeno was impressive with her free-flowing style and defeated Keiko Yukawa 9/5. Not exactly an upset, but Gao Meng ousted her Chinese teammate and defending champion, world number one, Liu Shasha 9/7. Liu was not the only hotpot to bite the dust, world number two Chen Siming went out when Karen Corr played most impressively dispatching her 9/4.
The quarter-finals were next and one match was one that could have been billed as the final, Kim Gayoung vs Han Yu. High quality play throughout the match, but Han led from the start and beat Kim 9/6. On another table, Bai Ge eliminated her opponent very convincingly 9/3. Gao Meng and Chezka Centeno had a tough battle with the scores never more than two the difference. At hill/hill, Centeno played a very careless shot and left the table to the mercy of Gao who took full advantage to clean up for a well fought 9/8 victory. The other quarter-final saw Karen Corr trailing 6/0 at one point, but fought her way back the make the scores 5/7. Just when Corr look set to pull another rack closer, she missed and comparatively easy 9 ball and never really recovered from there, losing 5/9.
In the first semi-final Han Yu got away to a handy start and looked the goods for the entire match, winning comfortably 9/4. The other semi-final was a different story. After Gao Meng getting away to a handy lead, a tenacious Chihiro Kawahar started to gradually wear her down and got up in the final rack to win 9/8.
Tomorrow will see play commence at 2.00 pm for third place between todays losing semi-finalists, Bai Ge of China, and Gao Meng, and then at 4.00 pm the final between 2013 world champion Han Yu and Chihiro Kawahar of Japan.
