NEWS - 05.23.04 BCA Open 9-Ball – Karen Corr & Tony Robles



Arena


This year’s edition of the BCA Open 9-Ball for men and women was once more held in the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. This is the only major event, where 64 women and 64 men compete side by side for the same price money – the spectators very much appreciate this format. A crowd of about 1,000 spectators assisted to the semi-finals and finals to support the players.

In the women competition, the German starter was S. Ortner from Sindelfingen. In round 1, she won against D. Stinson (USA) 9-6, but lost in round 2 to V. Villarreal (USA) 3-9. In the losers bracket, she scored clear wins over S. Rhee (9-0), B. Campos-Calhoun (9-5) and J. Baretta (9-5), all from the USA. But her next match against R. Biddle (USA) was her final station and after losing 8-9, she finished 13th.

As usually, the top players were A. Fisher (GBR) and defending champion K. Corr (IRE). To the general surprise, J. Kelly (IRE) fought her way through to the semi-finals, where she lost to her country fellow Corr 4-7. In the final, A. Fisher wanted to take her revenge, but just like last year, she didn’t find her game and had to give in once more to her toughest opponent 4-7.


The Final














In the men competition, two German competitors took up the challenge – World Champion T. Hohmann and myself. As the defending champion, I was seeded as number 1 and started with a 11-7 over V. Ignacio from the Philippines who lives in San Diego. Hohmann won 11-8 against Challenge of Champions runner-up J. Horsfall (CAN). Hohmann’s next opponent was the fastest player of the Pro Tour - L. Salvas from Canada, to whom he lost 9-11. In my next match against R. Luat from the Philippines, I was weakened by a bad flu and played a bad match with more than 10 major mistakes. I could not really fight my 5-11 defeat. A break day allowed me to regain some forces and to win the next match the following day against J. Garcia (USA) 11-7, after an intermediate 6-0 lead. Hohmanns next task was all but easy. E. Reyes (PHI) who had lost his first match did not find his game in the beginning and was trailing all the time against the current World Champion. But towards the end, he could benefit from a few mistakes committed by the German player and with his 11-8 success eliminated at this early stage the European No.1.

My next opponent was T. Crosby, a player from Great Britain who lives in Florida. Again, I had a good start and was leading 6-0. This time I managed to keep this advantage until the end and entered the next round winning 11-4. In the next round, I had to face L. Nevel, the World All Around Champion of the Derby City Classic 2003. Two bad safety shots allowed the US players to take a rapid lead – and then he succeeded in everything. He answered even the best safety shots with a re-safe of even potted the ball and finally, I could not hinder my 4-11 defeat. For the third consecutive time, I only finished 17th.

US player T. Robles reached the final undefeated. The semi-final on the losers side opposed A. Pagulayan (CAN) and S. Sambajon (PHI). The semi-finals and finals were recorded by the US sports channel ESPN and for this reason, the matches were only played in races to 7. After a 3-0 lead for Sambajon, Pagulayan came back and turned the score around to lead 5-3. But then, everything went in favour of Sambajon, who entered the final with a 7-5 win. Both Sambajon and Robles had never won a major tournament before. Both had entered several finals, but never managed to win. So it was obvious that one of the two would put an end to this and the one who succeeded in doing so was T. Robles from New York. With a very solid performance, he also benefited from unnecessary mistakes of his opponent. The final score of 7-2 was Robles’ first major title and he could also enjoy the price money cheque of 15.000 US$.


Tony Robles