Carlo Biada joined the likes of Efren Reyes, Ronato Alcano, Alex Pagulayan, and Francisco Bustamante Thursday evening. The 34-year-old Biado soundly defeated fellow Filipino Ronald Garcia, 13-5, to win the World 9-Ball Championship at the Al Arabi Sports Club in Doha, Qatar.
The native of La Union became the first Filipino in seven years to win the crown. Bustamante won the championship back in 2010 and was preceded by Reyes back in 1999, Alcano in 2006, and Pagulayan in 2004.
“It’s been a long time. I worked very hard, had many disappointments. And now finally I won the world title,” Biado told the World Pool Billiard Association.
Biado was in-form all throughout the Finals, starting with a 7-0 rack-lead. The match only last two hours.
The world championship is a perfect year-end capper for the Filipino cue artist as he also won gold in the 2017 World Games and the 2017 Southeast Asian Games.
“When I won the World Games there was a lot of pressure more than here because there were so many people watching,” Biado recalled. “After I won in Poland against Jayson Shaw I just felt so good and so much more confident when I entered other events. That was a really big help to my confidence and I know it definitely helped me this week and today.”
Biado, ranked number seven in the world, will pocket USD 30,000 for the win.
The Filipino champion started his campaign by defeating Daniel Tangudd and Tomasz Kaplan with lines of 11-6 and 11-8 respectively. He followed this up with an 11-7 triumph over Filipino Jeffrey Ignacio in the round of 16.
During the quarterfinals, he was granted a bye after Chinese opponent Hal Tao Liu failed to show up in time. Biado blasted Chinese-Taipei’s Kun Lin Wu to set-up the finals showdown with Garcia
Garcia, on the other hand, went home with USD 15,000.
