Korea and Japan Dead Locked at 2nd Annual Brunswick Korea vs. Japan Challenge

Korea and Japan Dead Locked at 2nd Annual Brunswick Korea vs. Japan Challenge The first day of the Second Annual Brunswick Korea Versus Japan tournament began with two-on-two men’s doubles and featured Korea's number-two-ranked player Woong Dae Kim and Charlie Williams against Japan's number-one-ranked player Hiroshi Takenaka and number-two player Go Takami. Japan could do no wrong, while Kim made a critical error on a scratch shot and Japan cruised to a quick 3-0 victory. Next Korea's Captain Shin Young Park and Yun Mi Lim took on Japan's Shuji Nagata and their star player Miyuki Sakai in her television debut. Sakai seemed a little shaky for her first TV appearance when she missed an easy 8 ball to put Japan up 2-0. This gave the Koreans the chance to come back with 3 in a row to win the match 3-1 and tie the score at one match apiece for Korea and Japan. Next was the four-on-four scotch doubles match, where Team Korea seemed to play in perfect unison with Williams coming with a huge 3 ball combo to start the run-out and later a long table-length draw shot to put Korea in the lead 2 matches to 1.
With the singles starting, Korea opted to try to take a bigger lead by sending in its top gun “The Korean Dragon,” while Japan needed to stop Korea's momentum and sent in Takenaka. Williams made two great shots in the beginning rack but then missed an easy 4 ball, which gave Takenaka breathing room to take on that and the next game in a break and run for a 2-0 lead. Then Takenaka missed a 5 ball but left Williams no shot in the third rack. Williams went for a safety that didn’t turn out, and Takenaka came with an eventual 4-0 shut-out of Williams to tie it 2-2. Things looked even worse the next match as Park trailed 0-3 to Takami but clawed his way back with superb jump shots and safety play to tie it 3-3. The final game saw Park dry off the break and giving Takami an open table. But Takami made the 1 ball with a scratch in the side, giving Park the open table and run-out to put Korea back on top 3-2. Then it was Kim against charismatic JBC founder Nagata in the final men’s singles match of the day. Nagata was delightful to the Korea audience in his introductions, pulling out his cue like a sword and swiping it gracefully in samurai fashion. His theatrics paid off on the table as well, as he capitalized on Kim's errors to gain a 4-2 win, giving Japan their third match win.Finally, it was the showdown of the women warriors as Korea's "Pool Princess" Yun Mi Lim took on "Lady Samurai" Miyuki Sakai. Sakai seemed to be settling down in her nerves as she took a 2-0 lead. But a miss by her in the third rack breathed life into Lim, who seemed unstoppable the rest of the match as she punished each Sakai error for a 4-2 win for Korea. This was their first rematch since Sakai's thrilling win over Lim 9-8 in the 2004 Korea International Championships.With the rule of the trailing team being able to choose in what order they would like to play the Woman versus Man match, Japan opted to put their Japanese man out first against Korea's woman, with Korea having the reverse choice the next day.Lim was sent out again to take on Japan's captain Nagata. The pressure was on Nagata as he made two critical errors, giving Lim the first game and seemingly the second when Lim unexpectedly missed. Then Nagata held himself together for the 3-1 win to end Day 1 four matches apiece for Korea and Japan.Day 2 starts tomorrow, with the first team to reach 9 matches crowned the champion. Matches will include Japan Woman versus Korean Man, #1 Korean versus #1 Japanese, 4-on-4, and man/woman team vs man/man scotch doubles matches, and the final matches all singles. Korea versus Japan Ultimate Pool Challenge will air 8 weeks on its regular Monday night time slot on MBC ESPN. Korea versus Japan is part of the Brunswick KPT Tour. Visit Inside POOL Magazine for the latest news from the sport of billiards and pool.

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