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Liu Takes Amway Title for Taiwan

Liu remained placid, even after winning a momentous title for her country.

Liu remained placid, even after winning a momentous title for her country.

In a surprisingly one-sided final match, Taiwan’s Sin-Mei Liu took the $20,000 prize at this year’s Amway Cup in Taipei, Taiwan in a final against top-ranked Allison Fisher. This is only the second time in the event’s six-year history that a Taiwanese player has won the event. (The previous Taiwanese victor was Jennifer Chen). All the other titles have gone to Fisher.

This time, the British perennial champ took a brutal 11-2 loss . She did not score a point until a seventh-game run out brought the score to 6-1, and she failed to pick up momentum from there, scoring only once more. Fisher didn’t capitalize on several of Liu’s mistakes, including a 7-ball bank that left the ball sitting on the lip of the pocket.

Liu took the final game with a tricky run-out that included jumping out of a safety on the 1 and recovering from poor position on the 4. As icing on the cake, she sank the 5 and 7 in one shot before running what was left of the rack. She registered little emotion as she won the title, but did say that this was the first time that she had beaten Fisher in Taiwan.

Fisher took home $10,000 for second place, Monica Webb took $8,000 for third, Karen Corr took $7,000 for fourth, and Jeanette Lee and Korean Ga-Young Kim tied for fifth and $5,000 each.