IPT’s Reno Pocket Billiards Field Complete

IPT’s Reno Pocket Billiards Field CompleteBy Inside POOL StaffThe fifth week of qualification events for the IPT’s World Open 8-Ball Championship, which takes place September 2-10 in Reno, NV, has ended. Ten final billiard players will round out the 200-entrant field to vie for the $3 million prize purse.Seventeen players came out to Capone’s Billiard Lounge in Spring Hill, FL, and the field was tough. After a first-round bye, David Broxson bested Tony “The Sniper” Crosby 10-5 and Greg Ridenour 10-4 to come up against Sam Monday, whom he defeated 10-6 to reach the first final match. There he met one-pocket pro Richie Richeson and handled him easily 10-6, sending him to the second finals. Cliff Joyner, another one-pocket man, had lost his first match to Robb Saez 10-5 and took the long road to the finals, besting players such as CJ Wiley, Keith Bennett, and Saez again to reach Richeson, whom he defeated 10-7 to win his entry into Reno.
Cosmo Co. Ltd. in Tokyo, Japan, hosted 13 players at their qualification event—including reigning 9-ball and 8-ball champion Chia-Ching Wu. Runner-up in the 2003 World Pool Masters, Hui-Kai Hsia buzzed through the winners’ side filled with Japan’s heavy hitters, ending up facing Rudy Molta of the Philippines in the finals. After suffering a 10-7 loss in the first final match, Molta found his way to the second against Wu, who lost his first match against Keisuke Hanawa 10-6. Having made it all the way back through the dark side, Wu wasn’t about to be displaced and won the second finals by a stunning 10-1 score.Greater London packed the players in at Riley’s, attracting a field of 27. Most were UK natives, but there were a handful from other parts of Europe and the U.S. Relatively unknown in the States, Jimitri Jungo of Switzerland received a first-round bye and from there whizzed through the competition, allowing five opponents a total of 15 games to his 50 in order to win rights to Reno. In the final match, he met Rico Diks of the Netherlands and defeated him 10-3. The UK’s Jayson Shaw made a longer match of it in the second finals and came out ahead 10-8.Rivaling London’s event in size, Pro-Tyme Billiards in Orland Park, IL, had a 28-player field at their event, with heavy U.S. hitters like Rodolfo Luat, David Matlock, Jerry Slivka, and Jesse Bowman making their bids for Reno. Former 9-ball banks champion Danny Harriman slid into the winners’ seat by defeating Roger Griffis 10-7, Bowman 10-6, Faro Palazzolo 10-4, and Shin Park 10-6. Now in the second finals, Park came up against a determined Ronnie Wiseman, who lost his second match to Park by a close 10-8 score. It wasn’t going to happen again to the Canadian, who handed Park his walking papers 10-6.The West Coast got a smaller field of 13 to come out to Jillian’s in Pasadena, CA, but it was a field containing Oscar Dominguez, Corey Harper, Ismael “Morro” Paez, and Arturo Rivera—some of the toughest players in the area. Filipino Ronato Alcano went hill-hill against Dominguez, defeated Harper 10-5, and then faced down Paez 10-8 to take on Texas’s Jui-Lung Chen in the finals, besting him 10-6. Chen, one of the top players on the Fast Eddie’s Olhausen 9-Ball Tour, found himself up against Tang Hoa, another top West Coast player, in the second finals and couldn’t keep up, as Hoa took the match 10-7.Visit InsidePOOL Magazine for the latest news in the sport of billiards and pool.

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