Feijen ascends final summit at the Derby City Classic

Feijen ascends final summit at the Derby City Classic“The Terminator” takes one of two sets from “Rudi” Filipinos sweep all-around The party will last until the sun comes up at the Executive West, but for the official business of tournament play, it’s all quiet now at the Derby City Classic. Niels Feijen has wiped away any doubts about his all-around game, and made fans of those who were bemoaning his two consecutive byes into the finals.Derby City Classic image galleryDiscuss the Derby City Classic
Runner-up from last year’s US Open 9-ball Championships, Rodolfo Luat is always a threat to mount the podium, but victory seems to elude him. With a dramatic win against countryman Francisco Bustamante, where Luat came back from a 5-1 deficit to win 7-6, fan favorite “Rudi” earned a crack at the rested Feijen. The first set was all Luat after the first two games went to Feijen, “The Terminator” only managed to win one more game in the set.A determined Feijen returned to the Billiard Club Network pit and won the first two games of the set again. This time, when Luat fired back, Feijen found an equalizer each time. With a 6-5 lead, Feijen seemed to have broken to a closing run-out, but a 2-7 combination down the rail hung up on the lip. A shot later, with Luat jarring the 3-ball, the cue and misfired object ball froze together impossibly, and Feijen’s touchy tap of the white stone was answered by a masterful spinning safety around one blocker and to the opposite short rail. Feijen’s kick-safety at the offensive three was struck just firmly enough to grant Luat a way out. Fittingly, it came down to a case game, where Luat broke dry. Feijen was unable to tap apart a tie-up of the two and seven with the cue, and his safety-attempt left Luat a chance to seize the day.Instead, he overcut the 2-ball with a safe remainder, perhaps hesitant to try the rest of the difficult looking layout. Feijen pounced, kicking the 2-ball from near the corner pocket to a place near the pivotal 9-ball while sticking his cue ball with a touch of draw. Luat’s resultant foul left Feijen a 2-9 combination that he carefully examined, lined-up, and deposited in the corner pocket.Watch video of Niels winning. {xevidwidebot}pool-videos-billiards-videos/niels-feijen-wins-derby.flv|false|450|336|Niels Feijen wins the Derby City Classic 9-ball event|0|0xdcdcdc{/xevidwidebot} Feijen can now deposit some hard-earned cash ($16,800), while Efren Reyes came through with $30,000 combined for his One Pocket title and the All-Around top finish bonus. Luat and Bustamante followed Reyes in that order in All-Around points totals, earning a little extra bonus for the clean sweep by the Philippines. In the freshly added age and gender-based all-around categories, winners were as follows: over 71, Don Steele; over 62, Wade Crane; under 16, Nick Tafoya; under 21, Ryan Stone; top woman, Bora Jung.Action will carry on through the night as it does every year, some staying on an additional night to rest off a hard nine days of wrangling with wily characters. Others have packed up and left, taking tales of the DCC back to their pool rooms and hopefully growing this jam-packed event even further. Stay tuned for further discussion on our forums and more images in our galleries, and cheers from InsidePOOLmag.com on another wonderful year of the Derby.A special thanks from your haggard correspondent Paul Berg is due to the following underwriters of this wild voyage through the Derby: Barry Behrman (yes, I’ll be back behind the bar at Q-Masters on Wednesday night), Angry White Man (the undisputed master of free-style rhyming and all-around horrible pool player), JR Calvert and Sally Timko (this had to have been her idea boss) and Greg Sullivan (undercover birthday boy this week) and all of the people from Diamond who helped make this tournament run as smooth as humanly possible. Scott Smith, I guess you’re thanked, but Berg is howling from the corner about the Bomber making such bad lines that we both lost, and he’s Smith’s deranged bank pool sparring partner, so the editor has decided to link them together for future abuse. Berg is imitating some kind of Jay-Z song in a strange cadence from a curled up heap in the aforementioned corner. “If y’all got love for pool, I got love for y’all.” – Ed. Plague, signing off

Pool Balls and Billiard Balls at LOW PRICES!!!

About the Author:
Inside Pool Magazine publishes billiard news. Definitive Synergy creates pool and billiard management software.