Pool fans normally accustomed to watching Jeanette Lee on ESPN wielding her cue against the game’s best will discover today that her ESPN appearances aren’t limited to the Women’s Professional Billiard Association Classic Tour.
The Black Widow is featured in the sports network’s newest “This is SportsCenter” spot, which showcases a fearsome showdown against anchor Bill Pidto. To see the debut of the commercial, visit espn.go.com/thisissportscenter/index.html.
Although the 2000 World Pool-Billiard Association World 9-Ball Championships in Quebec City, Quebec, Nov. 14-19, brought together the best women players in the world, the finals came down to the Women’s Professional Billiard Association’s two top Irish imports. After a difficult route to the final, Julie Kelly topped WPBA No. 2-ranked Karen Corr to capture first place and her first major tournament title since coming to the United States in 1999.
Kelly, currently ranked No. 18 on the WPBA’s Classic Tour, twice knocked off defending champion Shin-Mei Liu (9-8, 9-6), then Jeanette Lee (9-7), before defeating her countrymate, 9-8 in the final match. Corr reached the final match with a victory over Lee in the quarterfinals (9-5) and a convincing win over three-time World Champion and WPBA No. 1-ranked Allison Fisher (9-2).
The alternating-break format is continuing to shake up the ranks of the Women’s Professional Billiards Association, but it has yet to break the Allison Fisher-Karen Corr stranglehold on the top two spots. Corr won the WPBA U.S. Open, Sept. 10-14, in Albuquerque, N.M., in a 7-6 hill victory over Korean pro Ga-Young Kim in the finals.
Corr took the hot-seat when two straight scratches on the break let Corr take a 9-8 win. Kim earned a rematch in a 7-5 victory over tour veteran Vivian Villareal.
Corr took home $12,500 for her win, and narrowed Fisher’s lead to 110 points. Kim made her first WPBA television appearance, and took home $9,000 for second place. Villareal accepted $7,000 and third place, while Jeanette Lee settled for $5,500 for fourth. Full brackets can be found at the WPBA’s website, www.wpba.com.
The new alternating-racks format shook up the charts some, with Corr going to the loser’s bracket care of snooker import Kim Shaw and Lee losing to come-from-nowhere Texan Kim White, both in the second round. Both Shaw and White finished unexpectedly high in the field, with formerly 28th-ranked White taking fifth place, and formerly 19th-ranked Shaw taking fourth place and making her first appearance in the television rounds.
Fisher claimed $9,000 for her win, while Lee settled for $6,500. Taiwanese starlet Jennifer Chen took home $5,000 for third place and Shaw took home $4,000 for fourth. Helena Thornfeldt tied White for fifth place and $2,800.