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Florida Bracket Prime for Big Weekend
Jun 29, 2007, 11:32 AM

So far so good for almost all the top-seeded players at this weekend's WPBA Florida Classic 9-Ball Championship at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Fla.

Jeanette Lee was the biggest name to travel to the left side in the first round. The Black Widow faced Marina Linguerri, who was making her first appearance on the WPBA tour. Using plenty more than beginner's luck, Linguerri pocketed a tricky 2-9 combo to take the final rack of the hill-hill match.

Allison Fisher, runner up in last year's Florida Classic, almost joined Lee on the one-loss side. In her second round set with Liz Ford, Fisher closed out the hill-hill set after a Ford miscue, advancing, 9-8.

The WPBA points leader will face Cathy Metzinger in the third round. Metzinger appears to be riding the wave of momentum gathered at the VNEA Nationals in Las Vegas in late May to early June. There, Metzinger won the 8-ball and 9-ball women's regular singles titles. In her first two matches in Florida, Metzinger upset Ewa Laurance, 9-7, then beat Linguerri, 9-5.

As expected, Kelly Fisher, Gerda Hofstatter, Xiaoting Pan and Karen Corr all advanced. Austrian star Jasmin Ouschan is not participating in this event.

The tournament is scheduled to wrap up on Sunday, July 1.