Orie Hida: bitter farewell of a phenomenon

TOKYO - The inexorable laws of topsport have decided in the early hours of the second day at the World championship about win or lose, about qualification or elimination. The triple world champion, 37-year-old Japanese Orie Hida, was the victim of a gruelling and thrilling race to death.

She lost with only carom against Karina Jetten, the Dutch number two, who also played for her last chance in the tournament. Jetten made her last point at 24-24 in a breathtaking tension, with a short, long, short carom, played with an incredible precision.

The small, ever-cheerful Dutch finally buried the illusions of Orie Hida, the phenomenon in women's billiards over years, the player who dominated the World Championships in three of four editions so far.

She was crowned with gold in 2004 in Valence (France) in a final against Gerrie Geelen, in 2007 in Hoensbroek (Netherlands) against Therese Klompenhouwer and in 2008 in Sivas (Turkey) against Karina Jetten.

The terror of the Dutch players, so we may justly say, but in her own country, for her own crowd, came an end to the hegemony.

And maybe an end to a wonderful career.

Ryuji Umeda, former world champion in men's three cushion and tournament director at the World Championship for ladies, said half a year ago: ,,Orie Hida has not played for some years, she never trains, but for the World event in her own country, she wants to try one more time to win the gold medal.''

With the elimination by Karina Jetten, the mission has failed: Orie Hida couldn't pass the qualifications, due to a very poor kick off and now is condemned to watch eight players who battle for the podium.

What the farewell makes even more sour, is that the Japanese finished with the best average, higher than the quarter finalists: 0.826.

We just can say: farewell, Orie Hida, you're a great sports lady.

And we hope to see you back again on the stage of three cushion top.

Two Koreans, two Dutch and four Japanese girls are playing the quarterfinals.
Therese Klompenhouwer, Karina Jetten and Su Ah Park remained unbeaten in their group, Ayaka Fukumoto won her group with four match points.

The quarter-finalists with averages:
1 Namiko Hayashi (Japan) 0.770
2 Ayaka Fukumoto (Japan 0.730
3 Therese Klompenhouwer (Neth) 0.694
4 Su Ah Park (Korea) 0.688
5 Yuko Nishimoto (Japan) 0.684
6 Natsumi Higashiuchi (Japan) 0.642
7 Karina Jetten (Neth) 0.555
8 Ji Hyun Park (Korea) 0.510

The matches (live on Kozoom):

Jetten-Higashiuchi
Su-Ah Park Hayashi
Klompenhouwer-Nishimoto
Fukumoto-Ji Hyun Park.