Chua ebook ssemis spot in US Open

Joey Villar – The Philippine Star

August 24, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Johann Chua of the Philippines continued to soar following a formidable 10-2 victory over Dutch Niels Fiejen yesterday within the quarterfinals of the US Open Pool Championships on the Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic Metropolis, New Jersey.

That one-sided triumph pushed the 2021 Southeast Asian Video games gold winner straight to the semis or two wins shy of including one other diadem to the World Cup of Pool crown he and James Aranas captured two years in the past in Spain.

Simply by being within the semis, the 33-year-old Chua is ensured of pocketing $25,000, or a whopping P1.4 million.

However, after all, anticipate Chua to shoot for the moon and get that valuable US Open title that solely three different Filipinos earlier than him had achieved – Efren “Bata” Reyes in 1994, Alex Pagulayan in 2005 and Carlo Biado in 2021.

Additionally, that distinction comes with an astonishing prize of $100,000 or P5.6 million.

And it virtually occurred that one other Filipino may have made it to the Final 4 if not for a heartbreaking 10-9 defeat by Michael Baoanan to defending champion and world No. 1 Fedor Gorst of the US.

The 34-year-old Baoanan blew an early 6-2 lead and was on the verge of upsetting Gorst and pulling the largest victory of his life when he led, 9-7.

However destiny wasn’t on his facet as Gorst did what he all the time pulled off, making one other practically not possible comeback to steal the match and deny Baoanan that likelihood of incomes himself a spot within the solar.

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