93 Players Take a Bite out of the Big Apple 9-Ball Challenge

93 Players Take a Bite out of the Big Apple 9-Ball Challengeby Robert AnthonyThe Second Annual Master Billiard Big Apple 9-Ball Challenge kicked off Thursday, August 5, at Master Billiards in New York City. This is a $20,000-added event with Pokertropolis.com as the headline sponsor. Major sponsors also include Benedict Min, owner of Master Billiard, and Joel Shapiro. This event is sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and the United State Professional Pool Players Association (UPA), and it is the third North American stop on the 2004 WPA World Tour.Though the $55,000 total prize money for the event was based on 128 players, only 93 players registered for the event. Perhaps the biggest surprises this year are the players who haven’t shown, including 2002 U.S. Open winner Corey Deuel, Jose Garcia, and well-known roadman Ronnie Wiseman.
Plenty of star players did show up, however. Last year’s Big Apple champion, Charlie Williams, defeated Michael Yednak and Geoffrey Bower to keep his position in the winners’ bracket. Top seed Johnny Archer defeated Brian Yi and Noel Bensuto in the first two rounds. Jeremy Jones, the 2003 U.S. Open champ, advanced in the first round because of a forfeit from an absent Jimmy Fusco, then defeated Corey McGregor in the next round. Even George San Souci, who is entering a lot of tournament these days for a supposedly retired stick, received a nice bump forward with the forfeit from Ronnie Wiseman in his first match.The Big Apple field has attracted a fair amount of foreign talent as well. Though Japanese superstar Hiroshi Takenaka fell to New Yorker Frankie Hernandez, many others are still firmly on the winners’ side. Both Mika Immonen and Francisco Bustamante took byes in their first rounds and easily defeated their opponents in the second. Ralf Souquet defeated Scott Ireland and Lenny Favata to earn his next bracket. Yet the most surprising upset has to be the game that was never played: Despite winning over Chris Lynch in the first match, Italy’s Fabio Petroni forfeited his second match and allowed Evan Broxmeyer to advance to the next tier.Visit InsidePOOL for the latest news in the sport of billiards and pool.

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