Jeanette Lee was forced to earn her win in last night's 10 p.m. match against Vivian Villareal.
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Side Rail News
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Jeanette Lee seemed determined to give her audience a good show yesterday. After a cliffhanger victory over Robin Dodson at 3 p.m., Lee proved that as the stakes get higher, so does the competition. Her 10 p.m. match against Vivian Villareal was a battle to the end; the two women traded safeties throughout the match until both were on the hill.
In the final game, Villareal ran through the rack easily before missing a shot on the 9. From there, Villareal and Lee both struggled to sink the 9, and the tension mounted. After her second failed attempt to pocket the game-winning ball, Lee turned to the crowd and joked, "We're trying to torture you."
Relief came when Lee finally pocketed the ball, to win the match and earn a spot in the 1998 final next year. She will face Allison Fisher, who dispatched Nikki Benish 7-2 at 8 p.m.
On the men's side, Kun Fang Lee was unable to stop CJ Wiley, who seemed determined to make a third consecutive appearance in the final. He reserved his spot with a 7-5 win over Lee.
Roger Griffis, however, will not be in next year's final; he fell to the seemingly unstoppable Oliver Ortmann 7-3. The only glitch Ortmann encountered was when his cuestick tip broke during an early-game break; the audience gasped as pieces of the tip, and a small piece of the shaft, flew through the air. Ortmann looked suprised as well, but it didn't take him long to recover. He simply picked up another cuestick and continued on towards his victory.
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The battle lines have been drawn for today's historic live, two-and-a-half hour broadcast of the ESPN Ultimate Challenge. The marquee matchup of the day promises to be the men's Ultimate Shootout, with the Professional Cuesports Association representative (either CJ Wiley or Roger Griffis) facing off against Professional Billiards Tour star and WPA World 9-Ball Champion Johnny Archer. After more than two years of verbal sparring, the rival associations will clash head-to-head with much more than the $40,000 top prize at stake. How important is this match for the groups? PCA president CJ Wiley openly voiced his concern that his PBT counterparts would not be above drugging his food or drink to gain an edge.
And despite not being part of the preliminary matches for the '98 Ultimate Challenge, PBT players showed up in force this morning to show their support for their boy Archer. PBT Commissioner Don Mackey and players Jim Rempe, Kim Davenport, Reed Pierce, Pat Fleming and Jimmy Wetch arrived plenty early at the ESPN Club on Disney's Boardwalk in Orlando to procure seats for the Main Event, which will begin immediately following the conclusion of the Griffis/Wiley '97 Ultimate Challenge finale.
In the women's portion of the live event, scheduled to begin at 2:00 pm Eastern Time on ESPN, Allison Fisher faces Dawn Hopkins. Should Fisher win the $25,000 '97 Ultimate Challenge finale, she would face WPBA National Champion Gerda Hofstatter for the $40,000 Ultimate Shootout title. Should Hopkins win the first match, Fisher would return as reigning WPA World Champion and face Hopkins again in the Shootout final.
The champions have agreed to join Billiards Digest Interactive for a "Live Chat" approximately 45 minutes after the conclusion of the telecast.
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