Chen Battles Back Against Corr
in Las Vegas
Mike Panozzo
Friday, May 19, 11:25 PM CST

Jennifer Chen, taking advantage of a mid-match mental blunder by Karen Corr, pulled out a 7-5 win Friday evening in the winner's bracket semifinal of the women's division at the 2000 Billiard Congress of America Open 9-Ball Championships in Las Vegas.

The 24-year-old Taiwanese native moves on to moves on to face second-seeded Gerda Hofstatter in the winner's bracket final later Friday. The winner will face top-seeded and unbeaten Allison Fisher
Saturday afternoon for the $15,000 top prize in the $160,000 tournament. The seventh-seeded Chen, whose only loss in the 64-player ladies' division was a 9-8 decision to Hofstatter, trailed 4-1 lead in the match, which was trimmed to a race-to-seven for the television portion of the tournament.

Corr, however, failed to call a time-out while preparing to "push out" after the ensuing break. Chen captured the next two games to cut the lead to 4-3.
Corr forged a 5-3 lead, but her scratch on the ensuing break proved to be her final trip to the table. Chen ran the rack to cut the lead to 5-4, then
pocketed a 1-9 combination to knot the score at 5-5. She then proceeded run out the final two racks for the win, but not without some dramatics. Chen was forced to sweat through a match-winning shot that carried the cue ball the length of the table and to the very edge of the corner pocket, where it teetered, but didn't fall.

"I almost had a heart attack," said the relieved Chen. "I thought for sure I scratched. "I got a break when Karen fouled," she continued. "I needed a break because I was playing very badly at the beginning. I hurried too much. I couldn't relax. Then I got into a rythmn."

The second match Friday pits Efren Reyes against Finland's Mika Immonen in the men's loser's bracket semifinal.