SEOUL – Spaniard Dani Sánchez is back in the excellent form he showed in his best billiard years. This PBA year is his best since the transfer from UMB, and after his recent victory, Sánchez is once again one of the favorites to win the Welcome Savings Bank tour. In the semifinals tomorrow, he will face one of the two Vietnamese players in contention: Duc Anh Chien Nguyen. The other semifinal will be between Nguyen Quoc Nguyen and Jong-won Kim. The women's final is between two players without a PBA win: Su-bin Chung and Kyoung Jin Lim.
The ongoing PBA tournament will conclude in the coming days. Dani Sánchez has once again shown his class in the lead-up to the finals, in which he won two matches in the top sixteen against Jac Hong Lee with 3-0 and 2,143, and in the top eight against Jae-guen Kim 3-0 and 1,957. Duc Anh Chien Nguyen defeated An Min-geon Kim 3-0 in the quarterfinals, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen defeated Byeongchan Noh 3-1 with a score 2,409, and Jong-won Kim defeated Javier Palazón 3-2 with a score 1,828.
Javier Palazón was one of the stars in the previous rounds, defeating his compatriot Juan David Zapata 3-0 with a score of 3,750. Robinson Morales shone in that round against Mori with a score of 2,250, and Semih Sayginer against Myungjin Choi with a score of 1,957. The first round already saw a surprisingly quick elimination: Eddy Leppens didn't survive that opening round.
In the top 16, Palazón defeated Morales 3-2, but the Spaniard was eliminated a round later by Jong-won Kim. Semih Sayginer lost to Jong-won Kim 3-2 in the top 16.
Two of the top favorites in the women's event were eliminated just before the final. Ga-young Kim lost to Su-bin Chung 3-0 in the quarterfinals, and Sruong Pheavy was eliminated by Kyoung-jin Lim 3-0. The women's semifinal defeats against Chung and Lim were Min-ju Baek and Bo-mi Kim.
Duc Anh Chien Nguyen is Sánchez' opponent in the semis