Finnish pair tops World Cup of Pool

Mika Immonen and youthful partner Petri Makkonen dominated the final three racks against Poland Sunday night to complete a 10-8 victory for Finland in the World Cup of Pool for the first time at Robinsons Place in Manila.

Immonen-Makkonen played with admirable composure despite trailing Karol Skowerski and Wojciech Szewcyk practically the entire night.

“We were down 4-0 to the Koreans and we got over that hurdle,” Mikkonen, the veteran, said.

“Then we beat Germany and the Philippines and that was a lot of pressure that we hurdled. Coming from that route, I feel we really deserve this.”

The Poles took the lead for the last time at 8-7 after Makkonen scratched on the break in the 15th rack, before the Finns caught a break in the next rack when Szewczyk fouled trying to chase the yellow 1 on the opposite end of the table.

Poland got back on the table shooting for the brown 6 on the 17th rack, but Szewcyk failed to capitalize and left the Finns with an easy clean-up to get to the hill.

And that wasn’t the last chance Poland squandered, as the young duo who are not even ranked highly back home, had just four balls left to forge sudden death only for Skowerski to miss.

“Almost. What a shame,” Skowerski said. “We had a lot of chances. I think we played quite nervously near the end of the match.”

Immonen-Makkonen earlier took out the charismatic Filipino pair of Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante in the semifinals.

The Finns picked up the $60,000 champion’s prize out of the $250,000 pot.

The other Philippine pair of Dennis Orcollo and Lee Van Corteza lost to Switzerland’s Dimitri Jungo and Ronni Regli, 7-8, right in the first round.

Reyes and Bustamante beat Germans Ralf Souquet and Oliver Ortmann in 2009 to add to their inaugural edition win in 2006.