“If I hadn’t come to Korea…”, “Son, Dad did it!”
On the 16th, the men’s and women’s final stages of the ‘High1 Resort PBA-LPBA Championship 2022’ held at High1 Resort in Jeongseon, Gangwon-do ended in great success.
Foreign players in both men’s and women’s divisions broke the crown and lifted the champion trophy. In the women’s LPBA held on the 15th, Natsumi Higashiuchi (Japan) won the championship, and in the men’s PBA, Maminkam, currently playing for NH Nonghyup Card Green Force, enjoyed the victory.
Higashiuchi faced Minju Baek (Crown Haetae) in the final, making the third Korea-Japan match in LPBA history.
Higashiuchi, who became her champion, registered as a professional from the 2019-20 season, her first year, and has a history of steadily participating in various individual tours. Starting with her invitational tour, the LPBA Panasonic Open, she has steadily improved in the rankings since then.
She started off by advancing to the quarterfinals at the Blue One Resort LPBA Championship, the opening game of this season, and the semifinals at the Huons LPBA Championship, the fourth tour. The best results before this match were 3rd place at the Mediheal Championship in the first season and the Huons Championship this season.
Higashiuchi expressed his joy that he couldn’t hide by saying, “I can’t feel it” about his first professional win. She is a strong player in the women’s 3-cushion world who won the 2012 World 3-Cushion Championships champion. However, she added that “this LPBA win is better”, revealing how desperate she was for this win.
He is very fluent in Korean and majored in Korean at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. In fact, on his personal social media account, there are often posts written in Korean along with pictures of him with close players and acquaintances. On this day, after the final stage, he read aloud a Korean speech written by himself.
He said that he introduced billiards as an online game, “In Japan (Tokyo), there was no 4-ball, so I started a 3-cushion international table.” “If I had not come to Korea, I would not have started playing billiards.”
Ma Minkam, who became the first Vietnamese player in PBA history to win the championship, was also the first to show affection for his family. Taking out of his pocket the letter of appreciation he had written with his happy face, he first said, “Thank you to his wife.”
Mamincalm turned Frederick Kudron (Welcome Savings Bank, Belgium) around so much that he was called ‘Kudron’s natural enemy’. He won a total of five fights. However, there was no young yeon with the final stage. This is his first professional finals. 토토사이트
Mamin Calm, who has been active on the PBA tour since the 2020-21 season, has the best performance in the previous match, which was the 4th place (3rd place) in the 1st tour (SK Rent-A-Car Championship) in the 2020-21 season.
He couldn’t hide his joy, cheering, “Son, Dad did it,” along with the overwhelming impression that “It was a victory I’ve been waiting for.”
Both PBA and LPBA runner-up Tae-jun Oh and Min-joo Baek made their first professional finals. In particular, Oh Tae-jun failed to remain on the first division last season and was released from the NH Nonghyup Card. This season, he returned to the first division tour and threw a challenge to his first professional championship. However, the glory of his trophy was unfortunately postponed until later.
Meanwhile, the professional billiards PBA will continue its schedule with the 5th round of the ‘Welcome Savings Bank PBA Team League 2022-23’ at Gwangmyeong Take Hotel from the 19th (Mon) to the 25th.