All Japan Championships 2006

The 39th All Japan Championships took place from the 16. – 19.11.2006 in Osaka. This was the last world ranking tournament for this year, so since I was the current Nr.1, the event was very important to me. We played in the high-class New Archaic Hotel in Amagasaki, a little bit outside of Osaka. In the middle of the big event hall of the hotel, they set up 16 tables which were in perfect condition. They were surrounded by big stands for over 500 people and since the billiardsport is very famous in whole Asia, it was not a big problem to fill the stands.

I arrived a little bit early, so that I had enough time to get use to the conditions and especially the time difference. But one of the most important topics in sports is the food. For every sportsman and sportswomen the nutrition is one of the main things when it comes to bring a good performance. But after all my experiences at tournaments in Asia I was well prepared for it.

128 men and 64 women, they all had the same goal, to win the title. At the beginning of the tournament the schedule was for me as one of the top players very nice and not too heavy going, which was a big advantage when it came to the big time difference. In the first round I had a walk over and then the draw made me play against C Kobayashi from Japan. I expected the match to be a bit different than it actually was but I pulled through and won with 7:5. Till the final round I only had two more matches to win and even though I had a bad start I managed to win the next two matches against Y. Takemoto (JPN) and Jung Sung Hyun (KOR) with 7:1 and 7:6. In the final round I faced the current Nr.1 in Japan, Akimi Kajitani. The match had a lot of up and downs and nobody could find the stroke. On Account of my physically strength I ended up winning the match with 9:7. In the quarterfinal I played not an unknown player. It was Zhou Meng Meng(CHN), the junior world champion from 2004, where I lost to her in the final. So it was time for a revenge. With a good game and a 9:7 score, it was the end of her tournament. I also managed to win the semi final wit 9:7 and entered the final.

The final was against Lin Yuan-Chun from Chinese Taipei. I had a good start and took a rapid 3:0 lead but it didn’t take her very long to answer. She took over but I fought back into match. At the score of 8:7 for me I screwed up the position for the 6 ball which made me lose the game. She ran out the next game and took the title. Of course it is not very nice to lose 9:8 in the final but after all I reached my goal to finish the year as the Nr.1 in the world ranking.

Lee Ven Corteeza(PHI) won in the men division over Chang Pei-Wei(TPE).

Match Results: