I had the great honor of directing one fabulous event this past weekend. The Pre-U.S. Open warm-up event at Great Slates. We'll have the updated story on AZ sometime today, or tonight - it was a late weekend.
We ended up with 64 players coming to the event - of those 64 some of the top players included:
Ralf Souquet
Francisco Bustamante
Santos Sambajon
Earl Strickland
Young Hwa Jeong (S. Korean Champion - took Japan Open last year)
Frankie Hernandez
Scott Frost
Allen Hopkins
Brian Yi
Edgar Acaba
Mike Davis
Ryan McCreesh
Tony Chohan
The results were
1st - Francisco Bustamante, 2nd Ralf Souquet, 3rd Santos Sambajon, 4th Allen Hopkins, 5th-6th was Young Hwa Jeong, and Mike Davis
As my brain has fried from this weekend and starting my daughter off to first grade this morning - I'll have to go back to my notes as to who filled out the remaining top spots, I know Earl took 7th 8th.
My favorite game of the event... The final match was awesome - it was a single race to 11. Bustamante got up 9 to 3 on Souquet. Souquet came back to make it 9 to 5 - during the next game Bustamante gave Souquet ball in hand with the 1 and 8 tied up on the rail. Souquet took an intentional foul and tied up the other side of the 1 so Bustamante couldn't legally hit the one - Bustamante took another intentional foul to clear out the 1 ball, putting Bustamante on two fouls. Souquet, using incredible ball control, re-tied up the one ball by taking another intentional foul, both players were on two fouls with Bustamante now having ball in hand with no way to hit the one ball. He did the only thing he could - he took ball in hand and jumped into the pack - hitting the one ball first - but losing control of the cue ball and jumping it off the table, causing a three foul loss of game. The safety shots between the two of them were absolutely amazing!!!
Keep an eye out in the AZ billiards tour section or on our website - www.planet-pool.com for the full report.
We ended up with 64 players coming to the event - of those 64 some of the top players included:
Ralf Souquet
Francisco Bustamante
Santos Sambajon
Earl Strickland
Young Hwa Jeong (S. Korean Champion - took Japan Open last year)
Frankie Hernandez
Scott Frost
Allen Hopkins
Brian Yi
Edgar Acaba
Mike Davis
Ryan McCreesh
Tony Chohan
The results were
1st - Francisco Bustamante, 2nd Ralf Souquet, 3rd Santos Sambajon, 4th Allen Hopkins, 5th-6th was Young Hwa Jeong, and Mike Davis
As my brain has fried from this weekend and starting my daughter off to first grade this morning - I'll have to go back to my notes as to who filled out the remaining top spots, I know Earl took 7th 8th.
My favorite game of the event... The final match was awesome - it was a single race to 11. Bustamante got up 9 to 3 on Souquet. Souquet came back to make it 9 to 5 - during the next game Bustamante gave Souquet ball in hand with the 1 and 8 tied up on the rail. Souquet took an intentional foul and tied up the other side of the 1 so Bustamante couldn't legally hit the one - Bustamante took another intentional foul to clear out the 1 ball, putting Bustamante on two fouls. Souquet, using incredible ball control, re-tied up the one ball by taking another intentional foul, both players were on two fouls with Bustamante now having ball in hand with no way to hit the one ball. He did the only thing he could - he took ball in hand and jumped into the pack - hitting the one ball first - but losing control of the cue ball and jumping it off the table, causing a three foul loss of game. The safety shots between the two of them were absolutely amazing!!!
Keep an eye out in the AZ billiards tour section or on our website - www.planet-pool.com for the full report.