Lot of interesting matches yesterday.
Best one I saw was Hoang vs Makonnen. Duong was up 5-2, fell behind 9-7, and came back to win hill-hill. A big assist went to Petri for aggressive shots that went awry. I saw that in his loss in Florida too. Seems to be his own worst enemy.
Styer played very well vs Kledio Kaci, but he had some bad rolls and missed his position late in the match trying to make it 9-8. It was enough to help an extremely consistent Kledio to get by, 10-7.
Atencio was fortunate to win hill hill vs. a solid Mustafa Alnar. His subpar safety play let Alnar back into the game. Atencio is a shot maker, though. He shoots firmly much like SVB, with almost the same confidence.
Filler and Biado both looked a bit shaky early in their matches, then turned it on.
Biado is a tough out, but SVB is playing as well as I can remember in the short WNT era. Filler might has a tough one with Jefrey Roda. He better be sharp out of the gate.
Capito was in control in breezy wins over AJ Manas and Jayson Shaw. We saw ’bad’ Manas again, missing safeties or taking unwise shots. Robbie got some early rolls and it seemed to deflate AJ.
Pehlivanovic and Pecelj have both been very good, but not great. Skyler Woodward had a chance vs Sanjin despite falling behind 5-0. Yet he blew some position plays with ‘show-off’ shots and was also done in by some bad luck.
Jeffrey De Luna seems inspired by his latest controversy. Played as well as I can remember since the pandemic. He usually flames out, though, but who knows which Mario He will show up. He got knocked out in the final 128 in Florida by … George Antonakis.
The match I am most interested in is Januarta vs Oi. Changing of the guard? I think Januarta is ahead of AJ at this point because of his poise and power. He has won Matchroom ranking event, unlike AJ.
