On the boxing arena, Manny Pacquiao is almost invincible. On the billiards table, he was easy prey.
Gandy Valle overcame a slow start and turned back people?s featherweight champion Pacquiao, 9-4, yesterday at the start of the Motolite Philippine 9-ball Open at the Casino Filipino Ampitheater.
Pacquiao, who made it to the 64-man main draw after a series of gruelling qualifiers, started out hot as he came through with a couple of magical shots to race to a 3-0 lead against Valle, his mentor in the game he loves next to boxing.
But Valle, who teamed up with Snooky Villanueva to win the 9-ball doubles gold medal in the 1998 Chang Mai Asian Games, recovered in time and racked up seven frames in a row to seize a 7-3 lead and never looked back.
Anotonio Lining downed Richard Pornelosa, 9-5; and Ramil Gallego defeated Fidel Punzalan, 9-7.Also advancing were Jaime Capunitan, ranked a lowly 55th, trounced 10th seed Godofredo Ducanes, 9-5, while 48th seed Luis Saberdo stunned 17th seed Manuel Gomez, 9-7.
