Former World 9-Ball champion Carlo Biado trounced Poland’s Daniel Maciol in the race-to-four, best-of-three series to win the 2022 Medalla Lite Puerto Rico Open Friday.
Playing under a unique setup, Biado, finalist in the World Ten Ball Championship in 2015, asserted his mastery over Maciol and beat his rival in the battle of safety exchanges on his way to sweeping the series, 2-0.
A reigning Southeast Asian Games gold medalist in the men’s singles event, Biado dominated in the first game, winning four of five racks.
He capped the first rack of the first match with a spectacular banked shot at the No. 6 but miscalculated a safety shot that allowed Maciol to return to the table and level the count.
But the next two racks were all Biado who forced Maciol to commit two bad shots off safety shots.
The Filipino dropped No. 7 coming off a break in the fifth rack of their first match and eventually cleaned up the table for a 4-1 triumph.
The second game proved to be much tougher for both players, who ran to a spate of dry breaks, but the most pivotal came in the fifth rack when Maciol couldn’t drop a ball on his turn to go on the hill first.
Instead, it was Biado who was the first to reach the hill and eventually clean up the table in the fifth rack.
Biado just couldn’t put away his rival in the sixth rack following another dry break and Maciol fought his way back to set up a hill-hill encounter at 3-3.
After a Maciol dry break, Biado patiently sank one ball after another, taking advantage of the layout of the cue balls that were well scattered to complete the sweep worth $25,000.
