Second Day At Bicycle Casino Kicks Off UPA Event

Second Day At Bicycle Casino Kicks Off UPA Event By Hilary Morse, InsidePOOL MagazineOver 250 people came to the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, CA, to watch the second day of the final UPA tour stop, which is being sponsored by Brunswick, unfold. Tough and exciting matches took place, as many players moved on and a few packed up and went home.Dan Wallace of San Diego, CA, drew InsidePOOL Magazine’s 2003 Player of the Year Johnny Archer on the winners’ side after defeating Edgar Acaba. Wallace had previously finished fourth in the June 2003 Reno Open that is held at the Sands Regency twice a year. This was the third time Wallace had ever played Archer and the first time he’s ever lost to him. Archer, who competed in the Mosconi Cup in Las Vegas, NV, last month and has been winning nearly everything this past year, started off with a 4-1 deficit and snuck his way back into the match going 4-4 and 5-5, with each opponent making crucial errors to keep each other in the match. on the hill at 10-9, Archer broke and missed the 2 ball, and Wallace ran out to the 4 and missed.
Archer made the 4 and 5 ball but hooked himself behind the 9 trying to play position on the 6 ball. He tried to kick the 6 ball into the 7 ball, which was hanging in the pocket and left the 6-7 combo hanging for Wallace. Wallace cut the 6-7 combo and left himself a tough back cut on the 6 to get shape on the 8 and missed, leaving Archer 3 balls on the table to take the 11-9 victory.A match anticipated by all was between 2003 U.S. Open winner Jeremy Jones and Efren “The Magician” Reyes of the Philippines. The match was close until the score hit 6-5, and then Reyes took control of the game and his opponent, winning the next five games in a row to defeat Jones 11-6.There was a big heartbreaker of a match for Arturo Rivera, who played Alex “The Lion” Pagulayan. Rivera started off the match down 4-1 but came back and evened the score at 5-5. The match went back and forth, and Rivera fought hard to stay in the game but was down 10-9 when Pagulayan got out of line on the 7 ball. “The Lion” went for a bank and missed. Rivera pocketed the 7, got perfect position on the 8 ball, on which he only needed to shoot a stop shot to get to the 9, and ended up miscuing to lose the match 11-9.Exciting matches on the winners’ side abounded throughout the day. Buddy Hall and “Iceman” Mika Immonen matched up, which the Finn won 11-7. Hollywood Billiards house pro Max Eberle beat Johnny Kang 11-4. Local tough competitor Ernesto Dominguez was victorious over Trump 10-Ball champ Danny Hewitt 11-5. Ralf “The Surgeon” Souquet won over Scott Frost 11-6, and “Rocket” Rodney Morris scored another win, this time over Paul Potier.On the one-loss side, Bill Ferguson defeated Mike Davis, Tim Hall beat Frank Alvarez, and Tony Crosby lost to “Machine Gun” Luc Salvas.Friday will feature many exciting winners’ side matches, including a Reno rematch between Johnny Archer and Santos Sambajon, countrymen Efren Reyes and Alex Pagulayan, and Swedish Marcus Chamat will meet Rodney Morris. The one-loss side will also have exciting matches, including a match-up between Rafael Martinez and Jeremy Jones.Visit InsidePOOL for the latest in the sport of billiards and pool.

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