Joshua Filler
Random draws into a Pro tournament bracket have a way of matching higher- and lower-ranked competitors in the early stages of an event. It’s designed that way to facilitate matchups between an event’s best players towards the end of an event, thereby enhancing spectator interest, often reflected in on-site ticket sales or pay-per-view streamed broadcasts. It also tends to create an ‘early mindset’ among players at the start of a tournament, an expectation that they’ll have some time to get ‘in stroke’ against competitors they don’t know, before facing stronger competitors that they do know. Not always, of course, because competitive pool has the reputation of being a ‘funny’ kind of sport in that regard, where a much lower-ranked opponent in a given event can suddenly show up with the best games/matches of their otherwise unremarkable career.
This past weekend (Sept. 18-22), the 2024 China Open drew 64 men and 48 women to the Tangzhen Cultural and Sports Center in Shanghai, the world’s third-most populated city, on the shoreline of the Yangtze River, about 12 hours south of China’s capital, Beijing, the world’s most populated city. In the opening, double-elimination stage of the Men’s tournament, there were eight groups of eight that battled down to four on each side, who advanced to a 32-entrant, single-elimination phase. The Women’s tournament broke up into eight groups of six in the opening stage and advanced 16 to single elimination.
Germany’s Joshua Filler went undefeated to win his third China Open and before he’d successfully navigated his way through the event’s opening, single-elimination phase, he may have had cause to reflect on any tendency he might ever have to take such an opening phase for granted. He would end up winning 70% of the games he played in the second, single-elimination phase (55-23), while winning only 54% of the games he played in two matches of double elimination (18-15). His first opponent, China’s Xue Zhenqui, came within a game of forcing a 17th, double-hill game, before Filler edged out in front to win his opener 9-7. His second draw happened to be the Philippines’ Dennis Orcollo, who did force a single, deciding game in their match. Filler watched Orcollo take a shot at the match-winning 9-ball in that game and was delighted to see it hang in a pocket. Not wanting to play an extra, loss-side match, Filler sunk the 9-ball and advanced to single elimination.
Filler’s eventual opponent in the finals, Japan’s Hayato Hijikata didn’t fare any better in his single-elimination work. He won only 50% of his first stage games (26-25), losing his opening, double-hill match against Hungary’s Oliver Szolnoki and then, on the loss side, had to survive two, double-hill matches versus Egypt’s Mohamed Said and Japan’s Hsuan-Wei Kuo. He did, and advanced accordingly.
Counterintuitively, Joshua Filler’s easiest wins came in the opening stages of the single-elimination rounds. He defeated Sergey Lusker 11-4 and then gave up just a single rack to Yang Zhe before things started to tighten up in the event quarterfinals, where Filler squared off against Poland’s Mieszko Fortunski. Hijikata, in the meantime, opened with an 11-7 victory over Xihe Zhu and fought an almost-double-hill battle (11-9) against Taiwan’s Kun-Lin Wu before advancing to face Jui-Ann Hsu in one of the other quarterfinals.
Filler defeated Fortunski 11-7 and advanced to a semifinal versus Poland’s Konrad Juszczyszyn, who’d defeated the Philippines’ Jeffrey DeLuna 11-6 to reach him. Hijikata chalked up another almost-double-hill win versus Hsu to draw Japan’s Naoyuki Oi in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Things appeared to ease up a bit for the two men who’d cross the finish line first and second. Filler defeated Juszczyszyn 11-5, as Hijikata gave up the fewest racks he’d given up throughout the tournament (6) in defeating Oi.
Hijikata’s aspiration to become the first Japanese winner of this event had survived a lot of pool play, but it didn’t get past Joshua Filler. Filler completed his undefeated run with an 11-6 victory and collected the $40,000 first-place prize.
Han Yu claims her fourth China Open title in eight years
It was an All-China final in this year’s China Open, with Han Yu claiming the title over fellow countrywoman Wang Xiaotong. Both had gone undefeated to the final match and put on a fitting and thrilling double-hill show to end it.
Recipient of an opening-round bye in the double-elimination phase, Han got by Ukraine’s Daria Siranchuk 7-5 and Taipei’s Chieh-Yu Chou 7-3 to qualify for single elimination. Xiaotang qualified with victories over Poland’s Lena Primus 7-3, gave up just a single rack to Taipei’s Wan-Ling Wang and defeated China’s Muyan Zhang 7-4.
There were still some challenges to face as the women moved into single elimination. Among the final 16 were quite a few world-champion-class competitors, any one of whom could have emerged to challenge and eventually deny Han Yu her fourth title. Among them were Tapei’s Tzu-Chien Wei, Austria’s Jasmin Ouschan, the Philippines Rubilen Amit, Bulgaria’s Kristina Zlateva and China’s Siming Chen.
Among those, only Amit advanced to the semifinals. Tzu-Chien Wei was defeated by Han Yu 9-4 in one of the quarterfinals. Siming Chen lost her quarterfinal match to eventual runner-up Xiaotong Wang 9-7. Ouschan lost her opener to Amit and Zlateva fell in the same round to Chihiro Kawahara, both 9-3.
Amit won her quarterfinal match versus Kawahara 9-5 to draw Han Yu in a semifinal, as Wang squared off against Chieh-Yu Chou in the other semifinal. Han Yu eliminated Amit 9-3 as Wang chalked up a surprising (to many) double-hill win over Chou.
And along came what was likely the most exciting of the entire event’s numerous double-hill matches. Wang was in the midst of what was arguably the most significant match in what was also arguably one of the more significant weeks of her career. Han Yu was on a quest for a fourth China Open title, with ‘Queen of the China Open’ as a potential ‘name’ title. The double-hill match was a testament to their mutual desire to win it. Han Yu claimed her fourth China Open title.
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