So close, yet so far.

Carlo Biado came up short in his bid to capture the only world title missing from his collection, bowing out in the quarterfinals of the WPA World 8-Ball Championship in St. Louis, Missouri on Tuesday, April 7.

The world 9-ball and 10-ball champion fought hard against Wiktor Zielinski but ultimately lost, 8-10, in a marathon clash that stretched two hours and 23 minutes.

A victory for 42-year-old Biado would have set up a semifinal clash with his familiar Southeast Asian rival, Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp.

The other semifinal features Spain’s Francisco Sanchez Ruiz against Austria’s Albin Ouschan.

It was a heartbreaking exit for Biado, who had received a first-round bye and then cruised past Lithuania’s Pijus Labutis, 8-3. After falling 4-8 to American Skyler Woodward and being sent to the loser’s bracket, Biado immediately bounced back with a commanding 8-0 win over Ukraine’s Vitaly Patsura to advance into the 32-player knockout stage.

The Filipino hotshot kept his title bid on track with wins over Peru’s Gerson Martinez Boza (10-5) and the Netherlands’ Marco Teutscher (10-7) before running out of steam against Zielinski.

Meanwhile, Chezka Centeno and Rubilen Amit met similar fates, bowing out in the Round of 16 of the Seybert’s Women’s Open held at the same venue.

Centeno, the reigning two-time world 10-ball champion, figured in a grueling three-hour, 25-minute duel with Japan’s Chihiro Kawahara before yielding, 3-4, 4-1, 2-4. Amit, for her part, absorbed a 1-4, 4-3, 1-4 loss to Austrian veteran Jasmin Ouschan in a match that lasted two hours and 51 minutes.