In the midst of many contenders for the International Open 9-Ball title at this past week’s 2023 International Open, Aloysius Yapp’s victory wasn’t unexpected, though it was certainly not among the outcomes that any number of prognosticators expected from the $50,000-added event that drew 128 entrants to the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel in Norfolk, VA. Among the event’s last four winners were in the house - Jayson Shaw (’19, ’22), Albin Ouschan (’21) and Chang Yung-Lin (’18) – not to mention a long, long list of other worthy candidates in the 128-entrant field. Fedor Gorst was there, along with Joshua Filler, Shane Van Boening, and a number of BCA Hall of Fame competitors like Thorsten Hohmann, Ralf Souquet, Earl Strickland and this past week’s most recent inductee, Neils Feijen (Feijen was inducted at a ceremonial banquet during the event). In the midst of so many contenders for the title and perhaps because not as many were aware that a week earlier, at the inaugural Battle of the Bull in Roanoke, VA, Yapp had defeated (among others) Gorst, Van Boening, Skyler Woodward and Roberto Gomez, his name just did not come immediately to mind.
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