Peach Reaches Finals of 2007 Philippines World Pool Championship

Peach Reaches Finals of 2007 Philippines World Pool Championship
English pool player Daryl Peach has dreamed the impossible dream and is through to Sunday afternoon’s race-to-17 final of the 2007 Philippines World Pool Championship.
He followed up his epic 11-10 win over Francisco Bustamante in the quarter-finals with a cool, controlled performance to beat Vilmos Foldes of Hungary 11-2 on the main TV table of the Araneta Coliseum, Quezon City, Manila.
Peach looked as comfortable as anyone yet as he controlled the table after a shaky first couple of racks.
He can now look forward to a match up with the Philippines’ Roberto Gomez, who once again looked devastating in dismantling England’s Karl Boyes in the other semi-final.
I just can’t believe it, it only seems like yesterday that I was on the plane coming here, said Peach. This is a dream coming true.
I think I played my best match and I just froze him out. I was expecting a close match but at 2-2 he didn’t see a ball as my safety was good.
I’ve no idea how I kept it together after the match with Francisco. After that match I had been a bag of nerves and my eyes were filling up. But I can play better so let’s just see what happens.
Not knowing the table and using the soft break went against Vilmos 100 per cent. He was not smashing the breaks, but still hitting it with more force than he needed to and the balls are more unpredictable when you’re doing that.
When I saw him doing that I really felt I would get back to the table and that gave me a lot of confidence.
It has been a magnificent week for the Blackpool man who had defeated defending champion Ronnie Alcano (Philippines) and then tournament favourite Bustamante.
Peach has won on the tough Euro Tour and is currently ranked No.2 in Europe but his achievements this week may well be the kick-start he needs to take him to the highest level of the game.
Foldes had moved quietly through the upper bracket of the competition eliminating dangerous players like US Open champion Shane Van Boening and Asian Games winner Antonio Gabica.
As a spectacle, the match was something of an anti-climax due to Peach’s total dominance of proceedings.
Foldes won the lag and looked comfortable as he ran the table in the opener but a terrible lapse in concentration by the Hungarian resulted in an easy 9 ball missed off the spot.
Peach could not believe his good fortune but returned the favour in the next as he worked his way through the table before blowing a chance to go 2-0 by missing the 9 ball.
They shared the next two against the break before Foldes pushed out in the fifth game and Peach put him back in. He played a snooker but Peach jumped out of it and pocketed the 1 ball and from there he cleared the table to regain the lead at 3-2.
Following some safety, Foldes missed a cross-table kick-shot on the 1 ball which left it hanging. The focused Peach took full advantage to increase his lead to 4-2.
Peach ran out of position on the 9 ball in the next but saved the rack with a nerveless cut into a blind pocket and he ran the next to get four racks clear.
When the pot wasn’t available, his safety was always spot on as the Hungarian scratched and, with ball-in-hand, Peach made it 7-2.
Homing in on a World Championship appearance for the first time in his life, Peach was the master of the table as he won a safety battle with Foldes on the blue 2. A 2/8 combo set up the run out to increase his lead to 9-2.
It was more of the same in the next rack as the European No.2 cleared from the rack to reach the hill at 10-2.
Peach made his first mistake of the match as he failed to keep anything between the cue ball and the orange 5. Foldes, though, cold in his chair for so much of the game, missed the pot and from there Peach once again made no mistakes as he booked his spot in Sunday afternoon’s final.