NEWS  February 20, 2006  Turning Stone Classic VI – A wasted final

 
 Arena
 

128 participants competed at the 6th edition of the Turning Stone Classic 9-Ball tournament in Verona, NY, much to the delight of promoter and founder of the Joss Northeast Tour Mike Zuglan. Due to a date conflict with the IPT qualification held at the same time in Los Angeles, some of the tour players did not play, but the presence of 4 European players (Mika Immonen, FIN, Raj Hundal, UK, Thorsten Hohmann & Ralf Souquet, GER) certainly more than compensated this lack.

Since there was no seeding list, already the first round offered some top matches. With Chris Szuter (USA), I had a very tough opponent to play. After a slow start with mistakes made on both sides, I finally won 9-6. In round 2, I was playing Ken Kerner (USA), and playing very well, I managed to upset him 9-3. My third match against John Fernandez (USA) was again harder than planned. I finally won the 2,5 hours marathon match 9-5. In round 4, I played my worst match against Danny „Kid Delicious“ Basavich. Even if I was leading throughout the match, I finally had to give in 8-9, because at 8-7 and 8-8, I missed a total of three opportunities to win the match.

In the losers bracket, I played my fifth match against Karen Corr (IRL). The no. 2 of the WPBA ranking had lost the previous evening only 8-9 to last year’s runner-up „Hatchet Man“ Dennis Hatch (USA). I stayed fully in control of the match, even if I only pocketed once a ball upon the break. The final score of 6-9 was rather mild for the world class player who should not be under-estimated and who has already won two Joss Northeast Tour events.

In the next match against young Adam Smith (USA), I could improve once again my performance and entered the next round with a clear 9-3. In my 7th match against David Fernandez (USA), I had to fight hard, even if the final score of 9-5 could indicate a rather easy match. And in my 8th match against George „Ginky“ SanSouci (USA), I could play even better and fully deserved to win 9-4. Match 9 was the clash with „Iceman“ Mika Immonen from Finland. At the beginning, we both made a couple of untypical mistakes, so that the match was not too nice to watch. But then I found my composure and just had to benefit from the mistakes made by the Finn. The final score of 9-4 tells the whole story. In match 10, I started without the slightest mistake and took a rapid 5-0 lead against Samuel Ferrell (USA). Two short concentration gaps brought the US player back into the match and all of a sudden, the score had evolved to 7-7. But I could win the next two racks and with this 9-7, I had entered the semi-finals in the losers bracket. My opponent was „Earthquake“ Keith McCready (USA), well known from the movie „The Color of Money”. At the beginning of the match, I was sleeping and was trailing 1-5. But I came back into the match and at 4-5, I failed to equal the score by missing the 9 ball. Then, I had two more good opportunities, but at least in one of the two cases, I was unlucky because the 7 ball had a bad contact with the cue ball. McCready missed a 6 ball, but the ball found its way into another pocket and this was it. With the 5-9 defeat, I had missed the great opportunity to meet my fellow countryman Thorsten Hohmann in the final. But finally, I could be rather satisfied with the third rank, but on the other hand, I hadn’t played badly and my opponent was not really superior, so my satisfaction had limits...

The final between Hohmann (GER) and McCready (USA) was very colourful until 3-3, but then the German player showed great sport and McCready missed all the opportunities he had. Hohmann crushed his opponent 13-3 and won his first title in 2006.
 


Ralf-Joanne and Mike Zuglan