SPANISH OPEN REVIEW
Stage 1 didn’t have too many surprises, but some notables to note make it through the round of 64 were:
Jonas Souto Comino, Lo Ho Sum, Thorsten Hohmann, Wang Can, Gerson Martinez, Mika Immonen, Robbie Capito, Wojciech Szewczyk, Elliott Sanderson.
These players got through undefeated:
FSR, Max Lechner, Konrad Juszczyszyn, Albin Ouschan, Fedor Gorst, Jayson Shaw, SVB, Tyler Styer, Ko Pin Yi, Naoyuki Oi, Gary Wilson, (may be a bit of a surprise to send Mario He to the B side, though he would still make it through.), Eklent Kaci, Mieszko Fortunski, Johann Chua
Whereas the following came through the one loss side:
Sky Woodward, Neils Feijen, James Aranas, Oliver Szolnoki, Dimitri Jungo, Joshua Filler, Mario He, John Morra, Ko Ping Chung
As you can see, still a lot of big names in it after the first two days. That is all that was normal. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these competitors are so close it can go either way, but some of them, always seem to get through the qualifying heats into the final. Not this week.
Immediately in single elimination, FSR went out to Oliver Szolnoki, not a huge surprise with Oliver’s talent, but it was FSR? In his home tournament? It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, but Szolnoki had other ideas and took the match hill/hill 10/9. And the great matchups were only getting started, Wu Jia Qing, whom everyone was watching, and wondering if there would be any rust or if the skill and grace would be shining of old?
James Aranas fell in this round to Wu, 10/9. That scoreline was almost commonplace, as Duong Quoc Hoang defeated Max Lechner 10/9, Bashar Hussain Abdulmajeed over Mieszko Fortunski 10/9 and Emil Andre Gangflot dispatched Johann Chua 10/9.
Sanjin Pehlivanovic looked good taking out Wiktor Zielinski 10/6, and Albin Ouschan, strong as ever, beat Karl Gnadeberg 10/2
The young phenom from Finland, Riku Romppanen couldn’t make it any further as he was bested by Abdullah Alyousef 10/7
Some names you might not have been too familiar with, but you might take more notice now, Pijus Labutis advanced, more on him later.
Fedor Gorst, was his usual strong self, advancing 10/2, Dennis Grabe, Daniel Maciol, and Jayson Shaw advanced.
The Americans suffered some bad luck in the redraw, with Shane Van Boening, Sky Woodward, and Tyler Styer in brackets one after the other, such that there would only be one advancing to the top 8 no matter which way the 9 fell, but all three did win their first single elimination match.
Kledio Kaci, wow, Eklent wasn’t kidding when he said his little brother can play. Phenomenal.
Ko Pin Yi, advanced, as did Imran Majid and Naoyuki Oi.
Mario He had an opportunity to get revenge on Gary Wilson, currently ranked 15th in the world for snooker, and advanced on with a scoreline of 10/6.
Eklent Kaci, got by a game Niels Feijen, 10/7
David Alcaide, moved on 10/3 over Dimitri Jungo.
Our second real upset in this round was Alex Kazakis taking out Ko Ping Chung, 10/5. Alex plays great and is certainly capable of beating anyone anytime, but most expected Ko to keep going, especially since he finished 2nd in the Mezz Bucharest Open just last week.
Joshua Filler defeated Aloysius Yapp 10/4 to finish the first round of the last 64.
This set up some very interesting second round matches:
Fedor Gorst v Denis Grabe
Shane Van Boening v Skyler Woodward
Tyler Styer and Kledio Kaci
Naoyuki Oi v Mario He
Eklent Kaci v David Alcaide
This round though was where the underdog train started picking up steam. Now, these guys are all amazing, but with history as prologue, we expect certain outcomes.
What we didn’t expect were:
Marc Bijsterbosch d. Oliver Szolnoki, 10/9
Jani Uski d. Wu Jia Qing, 10/9
Duong Quoc Hoang d. Konrad Juszczyszyn, 10/9
Daniel Maciol d. Jayson Shaw, 10/7
Skyler Woodward d. Shane Van Boening 10/8
Kledio Kaci d. Tyler Styer, 10/6
Joao Grilo d. Alex Kazakis, 10/8
And Emil Andre Gangflot knocking out Joshua Filler, 10/9
With Albin Ouschan d. Miguel Silva 10/9, that made 5 hill/hill matches out of 16 in that round.
There was another hill/hill thriller in round three as we saw Pijus Labutis win 10/9 over Albin Ouschan.
Marc Bijsterbosch, Duong Quoc Hoang, Pijus Labutis, Fedor Gorst in advanced in the top half, while Skyler put an end to Kledio Kaci’s run, Ko Pin Yi stopped Naoyuki Oi, Eklent Kaci advanced but Emil Andre Gangflot had his run stopped by Dang Jin Hu.
Round 4 Single Elimination saw Marc Bijsterbosch advance through Doung Quoc Hoang 10/9, (more on this later), as well as Pijus Labutis d. Fedor Gorst??, Skyler Woodward through Ko Pin Yi and Dang Jin Hu crushing Eklent Kaci.
The final 4!
Marc Bijsterbosch, who got there by defeating some strong competition in Matt Edwards from New Zealand, Jose Alberto Delgado of Spain, Nguyen Anh Tuan of Vietnam, Oliver Szolnoki of Hungary, Jani Uski of Finland only to face Duong Quoc Hoang of Vietnam in the quarterfinals. Marc started out very strong, amassing a 6/1 lead and getting to the hill at 9/4. That’s when it started going sideways on him. They say the first and last one are the hardest games to win, and no where was the latter part more true. Duong, in slow and steady fashion just kept his hand in there. It wasn’t flashy, and there were 3 or so opportunities where I thought Marc had great chances to close out the match, but he’d get a little funny on a ball in the mid to late part of the rack and just kept getting further out of line. It went 9/9, with Duong trying a combination on the nine that hung in the corner. Marc was able to hold it together and carom it in for the win. I don’t know if he will be able to shrug this crazy finish off before he must play in the morning, but he is going to have to be at his best to beat Pijus Labutis. (Sunday June 25th, 13:30h GMT+2, 9 hours ahead of PST, so 4:30 am here)
Pijus Labutis, I don’t know much about him, he’s been around on the AZ Billiards money list since 2017, but hasn’t really put it all together yet. He seems to have figured out something here in Spain this week as he defeated Damian Massey 9/6, lost in the second round to Babken Melkonyan, 6/9 and then turned on the jets, trouncing David Castro Rodriguez 8/1, getting by Wojciech Szewczyk 8/7, then another hill/hill match against Bader Alawadhi where he moved on 9/8 to get into the last 64. He then knocked out Dimitris Loukatos 10/6, Abdullah Alyousef 10/4, had another hill/hill versus Albin Ouschan 10/9 only to face Fedor Gorst next. But even Fedor failed to derail this man, going down in defeat 10/6. Is he getting stronger as he goes along? This one’s a little better than a coin flip if you go by Fargo 789 (56.4%) for Labutis v 779 for Bijsterbosch (43.6%).
Skyler Woodward, this laid back, calm on the outside, easy-going fella, will close you OUT! Sky has been around the pro circuit for about 10 years now. He most recently finished third in the UK Open, second in the Chuck Markulis Memorial 9 Ball, second at the McDermott Classic and another second at the Turning Stone Classic this year. So, you can see while playing well, he just hasn’t got across the finish line to take a title this year. His path to the semi final was not an easy one, as with the UK Open, he lost an early match, in the second round it was Dang Jin Hu sending him over to the B side of the draw, 9/7. He cruised through the next three matches winning 8/4, 8/4 and then 9/4 over Lo Ho Sum to make it into the last 64. Once there, even Ralf Souquet couldn’t slow him down bowing out 10/3. Sky would meet his teammate in the upcoming World Cup of Pool, Shane Van Boening, and come out with the 10/8 victory. In his next match, he stopped the younger Kaci, Kledio 10/5 to put an end to his magical run, but Ko Pin Yi was next, and opponents don’t get any tougher. Sky though hit another gear and ran through him, 10/0, to set up the semi final vs the man who sent him to the B side, Dang Jin Hu.
Dang Jin Hu, a long-time pro player, has played very solid this week. Winning his first match 9/2, he then knocked Sky to the B side 9/7, and dispatched Radoslaw Babica 9/4 to make it into the final 64. Dang moved steadily through his opponents, Senharip Azar 10/7, Bashar Hussain Abdulmajeed 10/4 before finally stopping Emil Andre Gangflot 10/7. He then faced Eklent Kaci, and most favored Kaci to win, why wouldn’t you, he has been playing so strong and recently looked almost unbeatable, but Dang kept Kaci in his chair winning 10/2.
The semis!
Marc Bijsterbosch v Pijus Labutis, a nail biter, going hill/hill, but falling Marc’s way. I missed this one, slept in, sorry. It did start at 4:30 in the morning PST though, so, there’s that. I’ll try and watch it back later if I can.
Sky Woodward v Dang Jin Hu, both players looked a little shaky to start, Sky missing shots he didn’t yesterday, and the rolls didn’t seem to be going his way either. Dang took a large lead and with a chance to close it out, rattled a six ball at 10/4 to give Sky a spark of hope! He had looked to have given up when he walked back to his chair after the last missed shot. (Note. It wasn’t until this next break that Sky made a ball on the break) Only able to get the 5, he left a bank for Dang who didn’t miss, and closed out the rack and the set, to advance to the final, 11/5.
The Final
Dang Jin Hu V Mark Bijsterbosch, Race to 13. We will have a new major champion! The finals are up next!