Brutal day for the 830+ players. FSR, Fedor, Chua, Raga are all out, all against sub-800 players, some below it by quite a bit.
Arseni deserved every inch of his win vs FSR. Watch his runout on rack 14, then watch him confidently dominate til the end.
George Antonakis v Fedor was a little less emphatic. George played some great safeties, but also missed lucky a ton. Every miss, in fact. Fedor got one clean look the last four racks.
Souto looked great against Chua. Only had half an eye on that one. I never saw any of the Raga match, but it was shockingly lopsided.
The last three racks of Lukas' match are worth a watch. Gotta feel for the kid, who had a great run.
Lechner v Krause (not streamed) was one of the slowest, ugliest slogs I've ever watched in a pro match. Lots of misses on both sides right out of the gate. Max caught a gear for a few games then they both regressed back to seemingly two league players. After 3+ hours, the last rack was one neither wanted, with 4 or 5 misses in the last four balls. Max pulled it out after a straight-in, down-the-rail miss on the 9 by Krause, but it was dicey to say the least.
Overall, it's tons of fun here. Too hot and humid even in the venue, but the crowd is really into it and the matches have been great to watch. Can't wait for the final two days!