Kaiser Charges To Masters Final

GERMANY'S  Ralf Souquet, a four-time winner of the event, looked in excellent shape as he outclassed Taiwan s Wu Chia-ching to cement a berth in the final of the 2006 PartyCasino.com World Pool Masters.

He now faces Alex Pagulayan in the final and will certainly like his chances following a measured semi-final performance that saw him squeeze his opponent out of contention.

The Taiwanese player won the lag and slotted home a neat 5/9 combination down table to close out the opening rack and further increased his lead with another combo, this time a 2/9 after both players had goes at it.

An error by Wu in the third game saw him over draw the cue ball into the middle pocket to give Souquet his first real chance and he made no mistakes to get on the score sheet at 2-1.

A fine break from Souquet saw three balls drop. Although Wu got back to the table, Souquet had the first opportunity to run out and he completed it to level the match at 2-2.

The Taiwanese reasserted himself in the next game as he ran out from the break but Souquet matched him in the sixth rack as he executed a superb break and run to take the score to three all.

Wu handed the table back to Souquet as he missed a tough cut down the rail on the 2 ball. Looking like ‘the Kaiser’ of old, Souquet cleared the table to take the lead for the first time at 4-3.

Wu though had his chance in the next following a poor safety from Ralf and he cleared up to restore parity.

Another crunching break from Wu saw two balls drop and a route map unfold before him. However, he played a poor positional shot from 4 to 5 and left himself in all sorts of trouble and ultimately he missed a very tough shot on the black 8.

Souquet made no mistakes as he took the 8 and 9 to take a 5-4 lead with the break in his favour.

The German was forced to push out in the next and Wu, facing a difficult situation, put him back in. Souquet played a superb snooker and the World Champion failed to make contact with the 1 ball, giving Ralf ball in hand from which he took full advantage to go into a two rack lead.

Looking on the top of his game, Souquet mastered a safety battle in the next and ran out to get to the hill.

The confident looking German ran out the final rack to move into the championship match whilst Wu takes home US$5,000 for his efforts.