I am here courtesy of Fury Cues and CueSight Billiard Supplies to bring you some reports from the China Open.
The venue is a large sports arena in the Pudong section of Shanghai. Shanghai has 30 million residents officially and more unofficially. This area of the city is the less glamorous one.
The host hotel however is five star and for $85 a night that's pretty good.
Back to the venue it's in a stadium and the first thing you see when you arrive is a four foot wide Ralf Souquet on a giant billboard.
Like this:
Around the perimeter of the arena are practice tables and vendor booths. Most of the vendor booths are not yet set up. The table sponsor has two booths full of cases and other accessories emblazoned with the event logo. The hats are very good quality and this reporter needed a new hat so that was a good way to invest $5.
The tables are copies of the Brunswick Gold Crown 5. They appear to be set up well and I am told that the cloth is very fast. The lighting isn't good though as they are using the stadium's light which are very bright with lots of glare but also leave a lot of shadows on the table. Also the practice tables are practically in the dark so it's not really a very good transition. The players are not allowed to shoot even one practice rack on the tournament tables.
But overall the venue is fairly professional with plenty of room for the players. Each table has professional looking referees with white gloves and shot clocks.
There is one tv table that is separated from the rest. The tournament is being shown live in the local sports channel. Inexplicably the hotel does not have that channel in their lineup and they are one of the sponsors.
Yang Chin Shun played Marlon Manalo and won 11-6. It really is too bad that the rest of the Filipino elite are not present. I will try and speak to Ian Anderson about this later.
Kelly Fisher played Gerda Hofstatter and Gerda jumped out to a 5:1 lead due to several uncharacteristic errors on Kelly's part. I left since we are sponsoring Kelly and I felt like I was sharking her in some way. I came back later to see the score at 6:6 and Kelly went on to win it 9:7. Kelly blamed the lighting situation for the misses and went on to say that once she adjusted to it things went well.
In other personal news - the is the first time a JB Case is on tv as I have just delivered a custom case to Veronique Menard who had the good fortune to draw Pan Xiao Ting in her first match.
Win or lose Veronique will look good.
Be back later with more reports. Sarah Rousey is playing now. Jason Klatt lost to Niels Feijen. Jeanette lost to a Taiwanese player 9:4 - Allison Fisher lost to another Taiwanese player 9:8.
The venue is a large sports arena in the Pudong section of Shanghai. Shanghai has 30 million residents officially and more unofficially. This area of the city is the less glamorous one.
The host hotel however is five star and for $85 a night that's pretty good.
Back to the venue it's in a stadium and the first thing you see when you arrive is a four foot wide Ralf Souquet on a giant billboard.
Like this:
Around the perimeter of the arena are practice tables and vendor booths. Most of the vendor booths are not yet set up. The table sponsor has two booths full of cases and other accessories emblazoned with the event logo. The hats are very good quality and this reporter needed a new hat so that was a good way to invest $5.
The tables are copies of the Brunswick Gold Crown 5. They appear to be set up well and I am told that the cloth is very fast. The lighting isn't good though as they are using the stadium's light which are very bright with lots of glare but also leave a lot of shadows on the table. Also the practice tables are practically in the dark so it's not really a very good transition. The players are not allowed to shoot even one practice rack on the tournament tables.
But overall the venue is fairly professional with plenty of room for the players. Each table has professional looking referees with white gloves and shot clocks.
There is one tv table that is separated from the rest. The tournament is being shown live in the local sports channel. Inexplicably the hotel does not have that channel in their lineup and they are one of the sponsors.
Yang Chin Shun played Marlon Manalo and won 11-6. It really is too bad that the rest of the Filipino elite are not present. I will try and speak to Ian Anderson about this later.
Kelly Fisher played Gerda Hofstatter and Gerda jumped out to a 5:1 lead due to several uncharacteristic errors on Kelly's part. I left since we are sponsoring Kelly and I felt like I was sharking her in some way. I came back later to see the score at 6:6 and Kelly went on to win it 9:7. Kelly blamed the lighting situation for the misses and went on to say that once she adjusted to it things went well.
In other personal news - the is the first time a JB Case is on tv as I have just delivered a custom case to Veronique Menard who had the good fortune to draw Pan Xiao Ting in her first match.
Win or lose Veronique will look good.
Be back later with more reports. Sarah Rousey is playing now. Jason Klatt lost to Niels Feijen. Jeanette lost to a Taiwanese player 9:4 - Allison Fisher lost to another Taiwanese player 9:8.
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