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Live Coverage of Florida Pro Tour This Weekend

The second stop of the Florida Men’s Pro Tour boasts a cramped marquis and live online coverage, taking place this weekend, April 15-16, at Players Billiards in Melbourne, Fla.

Players competing will include Earl Strickland, Nick Varner, Buddy Hall, Rodney Morris, Mike Sigel, Ronnie Wiseman, Troy Frank, Rob Saez, Ray Martin, Danny Diliberto, David Grossman, Neil Fujiwara and many more. Tournament coverage can be found at www.platinumbilliards.com where brackets will be updated match-by-match and for some, game-by-game.

Sponsored by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the tournament is $8000-added, 10-Ball, race-to-8, rack your own, winner breaks.

Iceman Stays Cool in Atlanta

Mike Immonen beat a solid field at the United States Professional Poolplayers Association’s fourth annual Atlanta Open, held at Murphy’s Brass Rail in Athens, Ga., Oct. 12-16.

Immonen came up the one-loss side after losing to Earl Strickland on Saturday. The Iceman beat Luc Salvas, Mike Davis and Troy Frank to secure a spot in the finals.

Waiting in the hotseat was Strickland, who was not as successful against the chilly Finn the second time around. Immonen blasted his way to a lopsided victory, 11-3. Immonen earned $10,00 for first place and Strickland took home $5,000. Frank and Davis came in third and fourth, respectively. Salvas and Tony Robles tied for fifth place.

Upsets Galore at U.S. Open as Former Champs Drop to One-Loss Bracket

The giants all fell from the winners’ bracket on Friday night at the U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship in Chesapeake, Va., as Johnny Archer, Francisco Bustamante, Efren Reyes, Ralf Souquet, Niels Feijen and Jeremy Jones dropped to the one-loss side in the same round of matches.

The carnage started at 9 p.m. Friday with Filipinos Alex Pagulayan and Francisco Bustamante lagging on the TV table. The wily Pagulayan jumped to a quick 5-0 lead, allowing his foe near the table only once – and that was for a push. Regaining his world-beating form after two years of ho-hum play, the resurgent Bustamante rocketed back to take the lead at 9-8, but a hung 4 ball in the 18th rack brought Pagulayan back to the table, where he ran out and then ran the next two racks for an 11-9 victory.

“At the end I got lucky with the 4 ball,” Pagulayan said. “That was the key to the match. I was thinking when it was 8-8, just give me one more chance.”

On the next table over, Filipino expatriate Jose Parica kept one step ahead of countryman and longtime rival Reyes to win, 11-9. Reyes was joined soon on the one-loss side by several other former Open champions: Johnny Archer fell to Troy Frank, 11-6; Jeremy Jones lost to Andreas Roschkowsky, 11-9; and Ralf Souquet dropped a hill-hill slugfest with upstart Sylver Ochoa, 11-10.

This was all in the same round, mind you, and all within an hour of each other. Other significant winners’-bracket results from the 9 p.m. round included Nick Van den Berg smashing Charlie “Hillbilly” Bryant, 11-4; Viet Nam native Tang Hoa elbowing Holland’s Feijen, 11-8; and Charlie Williams halting Ernesto Dominguez.

That left eight men still in the winners’ bracket, and dozens left to brave the extraordinarily deep one-loss bracket in this field-of-256 competition with a $200,000 prize fund. At 3 p.m. EST, Tang will play Roschkowsky, Pagulayan will face Frank, Van den Berg will meet Parica, and Williams will lag against Ochoa.

U.S. Open Field Down to Half

Ochoa's play is turning some heads.

Ochoa’s play is turning some heads.

The 256-man full-capacity field has been cut in half on the fifth day of the 30th annual U.S. Open 9-ball Championships in Chesapeake, Va. there were no gimme matches left as several big name had slipped into the treacherous, mile-deep losers’ bracket.

Reno Open winner Marlon Manalo and 2003 BCA 9-ball Open titlist Tony Robles found themselves slugging it out deep in the one-loss bracket on Friday afternoon. Nearby, major event winners Marcus Chamat and Mike Davis faced off as red-hot Robb Saez and 2004 BCA champion Thorsten Hohmann battled for survival in the one-loss bracket.

Playing on diamond tables with 4 1/2 inch pockets and an absolutely unforgiving cut the finesse players and most experienced pros seemed to have an edge.

“You aren’t seeing a lot of guys breaking and running out,” said pro Tony Crosby.

Among the 16 players left in the winners’ bracket was Efren Reyes, who dropped defending U.S. Open champ Gabe Owen to the one-loss side, 11-8 on Thursday night. Reyes will meet Filipino countryman Jose Parica on Friday night. After a weak showing at the World Pool Championships, the Filipino contingent is performing quite well here; Alex Pagulayan and a resurgent Francisco Bustamante will meet in a winners’-bracket match on Friday night as well.

So far, the surprise of the tournament is young Sylver Ochoa, 19, a college sophomore at Texas-Pan American and a mainstay on the Fast Eddie’s regional tour. Ochoa beat Keith McCready Thursday night, 11-8, to stay undefeated. He will face Ralf Souquet on Friday night in a winners’-bracket match.

The sixteen players now left in the winners’ bracket are:
Nick Van den Berg, Charlie “Hillbilly” Bryant, Jose Parica, Efren Reyes, Ernesto Dominguez, Charlie Williams, Ralf Souquet, Sylver Ochoa, Tang Hoa, Niels Feijen, Andreas Roschkowsky, Jeremy Jones, Alex Pagulayan, Francisco Bustamante, Johnny Archer and Troy Frank.

Deuel wins UPA Championship

Corey Deuel completed an undefeated run to win the UPA Pro Tour Championship at the Bicycle Club in Bellflower California this weekend.

Deuel, known as the master of the soft break, was working that break to perfection all weekend and had wins over Charlie Williams, Mika Immonen and Efren Reyes before a 7-5 win over Danny Basavich for the hot-seat.

On the one-loss side, Basavich eliminated US Open Champion Gabe Owen 7-3 and forced Owen to settle for third place.

The finals were one race to seven on the ESPN table, and it went all the way to hill-hill before Corey put it away.

Deuel earned $10,000 for first place, while Basavich settled for $5000 in second place prize money. Owen and Efren Reyes filled out the top four places.

Complete Results:
1st Corey Deuel $10,000
2nd Danny Basavich $5,000
3rd Gabe Owen $4,000
4th Efren Reyes $3,000
5th/6th Rodney Morris, Mika Immonen $2,400
7th/8th Ralf Souquet, Santos Sambajon $1,850
9th/12th Frankie Hernandez, Mike Davis, Paul Potier, Troy Frank $1,350
13th/16th Francisco Bustamante, Johnny Archer, Tony Robles, Rodolfo Luat $900
17th/24th Charlie Williams, Neil Fujiwara, Bill Ferguson, Danny Kuykendall, Dave Hemmah, Max Eberle, Robb Saez, Charlie Bryant $400