“It’s important for lots of us to qualify for the people at home and it was my last chance so it would have been bad news if I’d lost.

Orcollo will join Group 2 where he will face last year’s semi-finalist Tony Drago and the legendary Efren Reyes.

“I will try to play as well as I can and practice a lot – I’ve never beaten Efren but maybe I can now.”

Taiwan-based Japanese player Kazuo Furuta rounded off the week’s qualifying for the 2004 Taiwan World Pool Championship as he came from nowhere to take the final spot and with it a place in Group 4, arguably the toughest o­ne of them all.

Furuta, who is married to a local lady and owns o­ne of Taipei’s many pool halls, was a first round loser in all his previous attempts to qualify and unfancied by the form book.

However, a string of hard fought wins culminating in a 9 – 4 victory against Jung-lin Chang saw him over the line as the eighth Japanese competitor in the main event.

Group 4 contains the likes of Yang, Schmidt, Peach, Crosby and Lohtander and the 32 year-old will do well to make it into the last 64.

However, he was delighted that his week of qualifying finally paid off, “I felt so much pressure as it was my o­ne big chance of the week.

“I am so happy though to have made it through and I will be doing my best to get some results o­nce the tournament starts.”

Stop the Press: Filipino Gandy Valle is the first of the ‘lucky losers’ to take his place in the main event. American Frank Alvarez cannot travel through illness so Valle will start in Group 13.

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