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The
second edition of the World Summit of Pool in New York City, 64 players
competed for the title and the prize cheque. Francisco Bustamante (PHI) had
to cancel his participation due to an arm injury, so the no.1 of the seeding
list Johnny Archer (USA) could start with a walk-through. The tournament was
played in races to 11 with changing break in the Slate Plus. The venue,
formerly known as the Chelsea Billiards, offered excellent conditions.
However, it was very loud and with the performance of the hired DJ, one
could not hear his shots on the last evening.
In
round one, I played Robert Staskowski (USA), who did not cause me too much
trouble and I won 11-2. In my second match, I was opposed to Marlon Manalo (PHI),
perhaps the currently most dangerous player from the Philippines. I won the
first rack and instead of scoring the 2—0, I made a mistake. Manalo made
use of this mistake and took a 3-1 lead. But then I won the 5 next racks,
but the player from the Philippines came back from 3-6 to 5-6. But then I
made use of a mistake made by my opponent and finally won 11-6. In the next
round, I faced Craig Riley from Australia. As expected, the match turned out
to be a fight and mistake match. Riley, who lives in England, played without
any pace and made many curious position mistakes, which made the match very
difficult for me. Even if I was constantly leading, I only won 11-9.
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ESPN Zone
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The
next day, I had to play my „special friend“ Corey Deuel (USA).
At the beginning, the match was very levelled. Deuel’s break shot
was played constantly with speed 1,5 and he found an identical table
after each break. My positions were much more difficult and I had to
fight for each rack. I made three safety mistakes and was trailing
by 2 to 4 racks all the time. The I made two break fouls, when the
cue ball was kicked into a pocket. At 4-8, I could make use of a
mistake by Deuel and scored two racks. But the US player continued
to win the racks upon his break and I had to wait for another
mistake. I could counter a good safety and came back to 10-10. I was
to break and had the chance to win the match. But before I could
shot the break, Deuel checked the Sardo rack and contested a ball
which he claimed was not press. 20 racks long, none of us had
checked the rack-up, but now he was once more up to break my rhythm.
After two minutes discussions with tournament head Scott Smith and
Carmine Sardo’s try to rack up all balls press, I could finally
break. I could pocket a ball, the cue ball was pretty much in the
centre of the table, but then another ball kicked it almost in the
right head pocket. The 1 ball was hanging in the left middle pocket,
but between the cue ball and the object ball, not less than 4 more
balls hindered the way. I played a push out to position a jump shot
or a rail shot. Deuel accepted, made the rail shot and had the match
in his hands. He missed his position on the 5 ball, but could pocket
the ball, with a bad position on the 6 ball. He pocketed the 6 ball
with speed 5 and had to pray to get a position on the 7 ball. After
two rails, the cue ball luckily hit the 9 ball, that it ended in the
pocket. The long 7 ball would have been a real challenge, but I had
to accept my very unfortunate 10-11 defeat. My opinion about my
opponent had been once more confirmed and in the future, I will play
this xxxxx only in the presence of a referee.
Until
this moment, everything looked like European dominance, since 7 out
of 8 players in the winners bracket came from Europe. If I had won,
all Americans would have been in the losers bracket, after the four
players from the Philippines had already been eliminated from the
tournament.
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Slate Plus
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In the losers bracket, I
now had to play Jeremy Jones. Somehow and in spite of a three hours
break, I had not digested my stupid defeat and I made a lot of
mistakes. With an average performance, I should have won the match
probably 11-8, but the final result was the other way round. I lost
8-11 and finished 9th. The second German player, Andreas Roschkowsky,
also ended
on the 9th rank, after 3 wins and 2 losses. The third German was a
bit more successful. Thorsten Hohmann won 4 matches in the winners
bracket, before losing 2 matches in the losers bracket and he
finished 5th.
The
remaining 4 participants met in the ESPN Zone on Times Square, where
the matches were played in races to 7 due to the TV broadcasting. In
the final of the winners bracket, Mika Immonen (FIN) lost 6-7 to
Marcus Chamat (SWE), when „Napoleon“ made the decisive point at
6-6 with a quadruple combination on the 9 ball. The final of the
losers bracket between Jeremy Jones and Corey Deuel (both USA) ended
2-7. So, Corey Deuel and Mika Immonen played once more against each
other to enter the final. Immonen had won the first match 11-7 and
now again, everything seemed to work out for the „Iceman“. He
was already leading 4-1 and 5-3, but Deuel was very lucky to come
back into the match and to win 7-6.
In the final, Chamat
was dominant from scratch. He
took a quick 3-0 lead. Then, Deuel won his first rack and Chamat
missed the opportunity to increase his lead to 4-1. At 2-3 and 3-4,
Deuel missed an opportunity to equal the score and so missed the
title. Am Finally, „Napoleon“ defeated Corey Deuel 7-4 and fully
deserved to win his first major title in the USA.
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Ralf - Christina
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