Arizona Open 2026, Yuma, August 13-16
- Thread starter Bob Jewett
- Start date
carlo played good against tevez, but not his best. shane is dead stroke. i kind of see capito as the biggest hurdle for shane.
rooting for mario in the top half, but a filler vs svb final would be dope
The cream rises to the top. These are all great match-ups. Notice SVB is the lone American standing. Hmm.
For all the complaints about single elimination, the cream has seemed to rise to the top at the Arizona Open. Looks like a very strong last sixteen that is sure to produce a worthy final four by day's end. There are some good story lines out there. The four that are catching my eye:
1. Can the fast-rising Jesus Atencio get to the semis of two consecutive WNT majors?
2. Can SVB or Filler win their second WNT major of 2026? SVB is going for two majors in a row.
3. My sentimental favorite here is Mario He, who has had some second-place finishes at the majors (including this year's European Open) but has never gotten over the finish line. Can Mario find a way?
4. Is Albert Januarta ready to join the ranks of the elite? He looked strong at the Florida Open and looks good again this week.
Good luck to all sixteen that remain. May the best man win.
1. Can the fast-rising Jesus Atencio get to the semis of two consecutive WNT majors?
2. Can SVB or Filler win their second WNT major of 2026? SVB is going for two majors in a row.
3. My sentimental favorite here is Mario He, who has had some second-place finishes at the majors (including this year's European Open) but has never gotten over the finish line. Can Mario find a way?
4. Is Albert Januarta ready to join the ranks of the elite? He looked strong at the Florida Open and looks good again this week.
Good luck to all sixteen that remain. May the best man win.
he's odds favorite, but not by much
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.
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.
Disappointing event for Eklent Kaci, Albin Ouschan, Aloysius Yapp, Max Lechner, FSR and Moritz Neuhausen.
I think Albin always looks melancholy. Just doesn’t have fire any more. He used to be a hothead. Now he can’t seem to find his mojo. Definitely lost a gear. Mentally at least. I know he has had personal problems, but you’d think the tour would be an escape.
I think Shaw, FSR and Lechner have lost a half a gear. Lechner maybe even more. They keep getting knocked out earlier in events than they used to, and sometimes lose badly.
Kaci just can’t find consistency. Is it the injury? His attitude (less confident)? I don’t know. All I know is he misses easy balls he never used to.
Yapp and Neuhausen, for their part, have been erratic this year. Yapp was due for a drop off after a career year in 2025. Moritz won the European Open, but he’s had several disappointing finishes since then. Went out early in Florida and Arizona.
Biggest win ever for 23-year-old American Nathan Childress when he knocked off Moritz. He’s improved a lot in the last year. Long way to go, but he’s out there trying. Not enough American players are.
Then there is SVB. Fire is burning again, and consuming everything in his path!
I think Albin always looks melancholy. Just doesn’t have fire any more. He used to be a hothead. Now he can’t seem to find his mojo. Definitely lost a gear. Mentally at least. I know he has had personal problems, but you’d think the tour would be an escape.
I think Shaw, FSR and Lechner have lost a half a gear. Lechner maybe even more. They keep getting knocked out earlier in events than they used to, and sometimes lose badly.
Kaci just can’t find consistency. Is it the injury? His attitude (less confident)? I don’t know. All I know is he misses easy balls he never used to.
Yapp and Neuhausen, for their part, have been erratic this year. Yapp was due for a drop off after a career year in 2025. Moritz won the European Open, but he’s had several disappointing finishes since then. Went out early in Florida and Arizona.
Biggest win ever for 23-year-old American Nathan Childress when he knocked off Moritz. He’s improved a lot in the last year. Long way to go, but he’s out there trying. Not enough American players are.
Then there is SVB. Fire is burning again, and consuming everything in his path!
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Didn’t see the earlier breaks but the one in question looked fine he just hit it thin and I don’t think he received a warning prior.
ref was wrong there. but the disciplinary warning was correct lol
Just watching the SVB-Vogel match. Jeremy Jones' "Sayonara, see you later" while the 6-ball was still halfway to the pocket was right up there with David Feherty's "Oh baby, come to papa" when Oosthuisen got the double-eagle at the Masters.
Oh, and the shot was great, too.
Oh, and the shot was great, too.
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So I'll say one thing about this. The WNT major open events, I consider any event where they're setting up the WNT tables and not holding it in a pool room like the phoenix open next week, to be a major, which is what seems Matchroom does too, are definitely geared more towards the player that regularly play in those events. I've traveled all over the country and in many places around the world playing pool and I've always been able to adjust to conditions fairly quickly.
There were a limited amount of practice tables and some changes that were questionable, more on that in a minute. There were only two practice tables, even though there was room in the practice table room for at least 2 more. They would let players practice on the non tv tables from 12 to about 1245, but these tables played so differently than any I've ever played it was ridiculous.
JJ even commented on how much the balls were sliding. His comment wasn't strong enough. The balls would take paths completely abnormal to what they normally would. The tightness of the tables were not a problem. I wasn't missing shots because of the tight pockets. I was overshooting shape horribly and then understroking in an attempt to compensate and I literally would need 3-4 days to acclimate to the conditions rather than the 30-40 minutes of actual play that I got and that was with sitting in the practice room for 4 hours on Thursday.
Now back to the poor communication. So the players got a letter a few days before the tourney that they would open the room for practice from 6-9 pm on wednesday. I planned everything around this, even extended my stay at the hotel to Wednesday and went a day earlier than I was planning. Luckily for me I went down there based on check in for the hotel, because when I checked in at 3 and went up and dropped off all of my stuff in the room. I came down to check in and get my wrist band and the room was already open for practice.
They ended up opening the room for practice 3 hours earlier than communicated and because of that, they closed it down and kicked everyone out at 7 instead of 9. Then they sent out an update email on the praactice times at 11:40 p.m., so 4.5 hours after they kicked everyone out of the room. Not to mention there were 6 players to a table for practice so there wasn't a lot of practice going on.
So it's not a surprise that players that aren't regularly competing on this equipment aren't making rounds. I can't reiterate enough how differently these tables play and again, the tightness is NOT the issue. I've always preferred a tight table and had no trouble making shots, it was accurately predicting what the cb and ob's would do coming off the rails and how far they would roll.
I now understand why Shane punches the cb the way he does, it keeps you from hitting tentatively to control the cb on such fast and different conditions.
There were a limited amount of practice tables and some changes that were questionable, more on that in a minute. There were only two practice tables, even though there was room in the practice table room for at least 2 more. They would let players practice on the non tv tables from 12 to about 1245, but these tables played so differently than any I've ever played it was ridiculous.
JJ even commented on how much the balls were sliding. His comment wasn't strong enough. The balls would take paths completely abnormal to what they normally would. The tightness of the tables were not a problem. I wasn't missing shots because of the tight pockets. I was overshooting shape horribly and then understroking in an attempt to compensate and I literally would need 3-4 days to acclimate to the conditions rather than the 30-40 minutes of actual play that I got and that was with sitting in the practice room for 4 hours on Thursday.
Now back to the poor communication. So the players got a letter a few days before the tourney that they would open the room for practice from 6-9 pm on wednesday. I planned everything around this, even extended my stay at the hotel to Wednesday and went a day earlier than I was planning. Luckily for me I went down there based on check in for the hotel, because when I checked in at 3 and went up and dropped off all of my stuff in the room. I came down to check in and get my wrist band and the room was already open for practice.
They ended up opening the room for practice 3 hours earlier than communicated and because of that, they closed it down and kicked everyone out at 7 instead of 9. Then they sent out an update email on the praactice times at 11:40 p.m., so 4.5 hours after they kicked everyone out of the room. Not to mention there were 6 players to a table for practice so there wasn't a lot of practice going on.
So it's not a surprise that players that aren't regularly competing on this equipment aren't making rounds. I can't reiterate enough how differently these tables play and again, the tightness is NOT the issue. I've always preferred a tight table and had no trouble making shots, it was accurately predicting what the cb and ob's would do coming off the rails and how far they would roll.
I now understand why Shane punches the cb the way he does, it keeps you from hitting tentatively to control the cb on such fast and different conditions.
Thanks for the report.
Are you saying that the tables play so much differently than other tables with say brand new Simonis and brand new balls? In other words, is it just the new tournament conditions or is it the specific cloth being used (CPBA)?
I remember a pro I know (in the 750 Fargo range) who played Shane on the TV table at the DCC one year. His comment to me was something like “it’s bad enough that he’s better than me, but he also plays on new cloth and under the TV lights all the time and I never do”.
I watched the whole match. Robbie was breaking the same as 80-90% of the top pros.
The guys like Shane, Biggest Kaçi and Shaw are the exception that thump the break more, IMO.
Unless MR sent something out to everyone or said something at the players meeting, it seems odd to suddenly enforce it with a foul, especially with someone who is far from the worst offender. Especially in this case when he did hit it harder than he had before but just caught it thin.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I've played on a brand new blue label diamond with brand new simonis 860 hr and one with 860 and one with 760 and this table with their cloth plays completely differently than anything else I've ever played on.
The first time I sent the cb 3 rails around the table, I was literally in shock at the path the ball took.
Now don't get me wrong, these are the best tables I've EVER played on, the cb bites really well, draw is super easy, etc. It just doesn't react the way you expect it to.
I ordered the cloth the day after I got home. I just want to get used to it. It plays great.
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The cream still rises to the top.
Its because Phoenix and the USOpen are right around the corner. They aren't coming just for this event.