Familiar Two Reach Final Four in Michigan City

Familiar Two Reach Final Four in Michigan City
2007 Great Lakes Classic

by InsidePOOL Staff
The final 16 billiard players battled it out fiercely in the WPBA’s Great Lakes Classic single-elimination format to come down to the remaining 4 players to participate in Sunday’s televised matches. The WPBA’s second event of the season is being hosted by the Blue Chip Hotel and Casino in Michigan City, IN.
Ranked number one on the tour, Allison Fisher bested Melissa Herndon 9-5 to reach the final 16, only to face a rematch in the next round, in which she eliminated Herndon 9-3. Unfortunately for the Brit, though, Xiaoting Pan was on a collision course with her. Pan, who took second place to Ga-Young Kim in a true nail-biter of a final match at the Carolina Women’s Billiard Classic last month, whizzed through the winners’ bracket with wins over Julia Gabriel 9-2, Wendy Jans 9-7, Tiffany Nelson 9-7, and Gerda Hofstatter 9-4 to reach Fisher, whom she dispatched 9-4.
Meeting Pan will be Kelly Fisher, another British snooker star. After being on the losing end of a double-hill match against Sarah Ellerby in the third round, Fisher went to the one-loss side, where she defeated Anna Kostanian 9-2 to reach the final 16. There she eliminated Georgia’s Monica Webb, ranked fourth on the tour compared to Fisher’s third, 9-3. Meeting Fisher in the quarterfinals was Vivian Villareal, who reached the semifinals at the Carolina Classic against Xiaoting Pan. She suffered through two narrow hill-hill matches to reach that point, one against Kim Shaw and another against Tiffany Nelson directly before. That experience must have been a draining one, for Fisher was able to walk over her 9-1 to advance to the semifinals.
Helena Thornfeldt took the undefeated route to the semifinals, winning over Kim Jones 9-0, Amanda Lampert 9-5, and Liz Ford before encountering Karen Corr in the final 16. Earlier in the event, Corr had suffered a loss to Hsin Huang 9-6 but fought her way back to the final stages. But she was quickly dispatched at Thornfeldt’s hands with a 9-7 victory, and Thornfeldt went on to best Kim White 9-4 to reach the semifinals.
Champion of the 2007 Carolina Classic, Ga-Young Kim will be Thornfeldt’s opponent in the second semifinal match. Kim’s track record so far has been nothing if not impressive, with a first-round victory over Darlene Stinson 9-2 and then a 9-5 defeat of Zinnie Panju. She lost by a slight two-game margin to Jeanette Lee 9-7 but then came back in the very next round to turn the tables and defeat Lee in a hill-hill match that eliminated “The Black Widow.” Kim then handily ousted Ellerby 9-5 to meet Thornfeldt.
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