Ng keeps title defence alive, Lau suffers devastating defeat

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Lau (left) and Teo shakes hand before their shootout.

SIBU: Defending champion Ng Hong Man battled on to live another day but former champion Isda Lau was dumped out of the Sibu City Swan Snooker Championship held at Southern Point Snooker Centre Thursday night.

Ng survived a scare before going on to beat Peter Liong 3-1 ( 64-7, 29-39, 58-13, 61-2) to qualify for the semi-final.

The much fancied Lau, however, failed to raise his game and was tamely beaten by relative unknown Aaron Teo 3-0 (9-61, 10-64, 28-42).

Ng took on Teo in the semi-final last night and was highly favoured to advance into the final against Mark Yeo tonight at 8pm.

“I will only take it one match at a time. Though we have met several times, there is nothing much that separate us and I still need to be in good form in order to beat Teo,” he added.

In the quarter-final matches, Ng easily took the first frame at 64-7 before Liong sprang a surprise and took the second frame 39-29.

Ng, who was recently appointed as coach by Sibu City Swan Snooker Club, regrouped and went into an attacking mode in the third frame.

He stormed into an early lead before coming up with breaks of 15 points and 17 points, thereby giving Liong, who is also the owner of Southern Point Snooker Centre, no chance of counter-attack.

And the fourth frame literally belonged to Ng before he wrapped up the game in about two and half hours time. For Lau, it was another devastating defeat after putting up a strong resistance against Teo.

Lau was the winner of the 1st leg of the championship and since then, his play had been on the decline.

Teo, dubbed as the new champion in the making, is indeed making waves in the snooker fratenity.

He even achieved a break of 46 points in the first frame and another break of 30 points in the second frame, thereby knocking Lau into submission.