Mika Immonen overcame a shaky start to take down Corey Deuel 8 – 5 and book a spot in the semi-finals of the PartyPoker.net World Pool Masters, where he plays Ko Pin-yi. The US-based Finn made a couple of shocking misses in the early stages to gift Deuel racks, but recovered well in the second half as he finally got the hang of the break.
“There were definitely some breathtaking situations in that match!” said Immonen. “I missed the 8 and 9 early on and Corey was coming with some nice shots and I felt it was slipping away from me. “But he missed that 7 ball and left me an easy out. I played some great shots including that jump on the 3 ball. “I was reading the rack poorly so I decided to go all out and make some hard contact and not risk an illegal break. “I’ve never played Ko but seen him play and he seems like a stereotypical Taiwanese player – a stone cold killer – and I’ve got to play good to beat him.”
It was Immonen who won the lag and ran out the first rack but he suffered a nightmare in the second as he missed a fairly straightforward 9 ball to gift the rack to Deuel. Aided by some good fortune that saw the 6 and 7 pocketed off the same shot, Deuel took the third rack to take the lead but a dry break saw Immonen back to the table. Immonen played a good safety but Deuel left the 1 ball on. They traded safeties on the 1 ball before Deuel scratched after banking the blue 2. With ball in hand, Immonen ran out to level the score at 2-2.
Deuel took the next and further increased his lead in the sixth game when Immonen made another horror miss, this time on the 8 ball. Deuel though, missed an easy 7 ball cueing off the rail, and it fell perfectly for Immonen who pocketed the remaining three balls to take the score 4-3 in Deuel’s favour.
Immonen pulled out all the stops in the next with a superb table length jump shot to pot the 3 ball and set up a difficult run out to level the score at 4-4. There was no ball down off the break in the ninth game for the Finn, but Deuel scratched and with ball in hand Immonen played a 1/9 combination to take the lead at 5-4.
Deuel won the next but Immonen increased his lead to 6-5 as he played a wonderful cannon off the three ball into the 9 ball which was hanging by the corner pocket. The cue ball looked like it would drop too but miraculously stayed out as it teetered on the brink.
There was more good news for the 2001 World Champion as he ran out from the break to reach the hill at 7-5. Immonen sealed an excellent performance in the next as he ran the table down to the 9 ball before Deuel stood up to shake his hand in victory.
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