3 hours and 18 minutes for 19 games. That's an average of 10.4 minutes per game. They didn't have a referee for each table, but apparently an area referee was somewhere there. Although shot clocks were not being used in this event, you'd think the area ref would be empowered to do something when a match is obviously going so slow. It caused a semifinal match to start at least an hour later than the scheduled time.
Over three hours to play nineteen games of 9-Ball! And people wonder why pool is boring to watch on TV or streaming.
When I was running the U.S. Open we would schedule matches based on two hour time slots for Races to Eleven. I would say over 90% of our matches were over in one and half hours, with a long match closer to two hours max. Myself, and my co-directors Ken Shuman and Bill Stock made sure to speed up slow matches, first with warnings and then with penalties. We used volunteers with hand held stop watches when necessary. And it worked! We played full field 256 player events basically in five days, with a sixth day featuring only the final four players.
That said, there still some nights that went until after 2 AM to finish. I would never schedule those players to play early morning rounds (11 AM) the next day. I would make sure their next match wasn't until at least 1 PM.
One last thought about this thread. It really makes no difference who does or does not make the U.S. side in the MC. There, I said it! That team will get demolished anyway by Team Europe. It's like Lucy with the football Charlie Brown is trying to kick. Always starting out with high hopes and ending up with nothing but another numbing defeat. U.S. Pool and it's players are completely undermanned against the Europeans and the Asians as well for that matter. I contend I could put together a team of Philippine teens (all under 21 for sure) who could defeat Team USA! God bless the American hopefuls but there still a full speed below their counterparts overseas.
