The Mezz Pro-Am 9-Ball Tour took the F train to Skyline Billiards, NY, which hosted the 5th Annual NYC 9-Ball Championships. The $3,000-added two-day event took place on August 28-29 at the popular Brooklyn pool room, owned by players Rob Pole & Sammy Wu. A field of 43 players including many of the top names came out to capture the coveted NY title. Click here to check out the photos from this event.
Top players included Tony Robles, Mike Davis, Mike Dechaine, "Ginky" George Sansouci, Eddie Abraham, Ronnie Wiseman, Brett Stottlemyer, Zion Zvi, Jeremy Sossei, Mike Fingers, Mike Miller, Manny Chau, and defending 2009 champion Stevie Moore.
Reigning champion Stevie Moore went through the field undefeated with wins over Eddie Vasquez 9-1, Michael Wong 9-6, Manny Chau 9-6, and Brett Stottlemeyer 9-1, setting up the feature match. Meeting Moore in the match for the hot seat, Tony Robles had impressive wins over Rob Merklein 9-0, Ginky Sansouci 9-3 and Mike Davis 9-4.
In the match for the hot seat, Stevie Moore played determined to repeat as champion, with an dominant 9-4 win over Tony Robles, earning an undefeated spot in the finals.
Rising star pro Mike Dechaine was also strong in the winner's bracket, with wins over Jerry Tarantola 9-5, Marc Vidal 9-7, and Jorge Rodriguez 9-5, before losing to Stevie Moore 9-3 and Mike Davis 9-7. Although Mike wasn't on the top of his game, he played well enough to be a contender in this event.
On the one-loss side there were several strong players still fighting to grind back to the finals including Mike Davis, Mike Dechaine, Brett Stottlemeyer, Barry Banks, and Ginky. Meanwhile, Tony was waiting in the wings for a chance for a rematch with Stevie.
Top Detroit player Ronnie Wiseman was also impressive fighting through the one-loss side with wins over Sammy Wu 9-3, Gregg McAndrews 9-3, Sean Morgan 9-4, and Mike Fingers 9-7 before getting knocked out by Brett Stottlemyer 9-2.
Ginky was playing strong enough to win the event, but was edged out at hill-hill by Brett Stottlemyer, who put on a gritty performance. However, Brett was eventually ousted from the tournament hill-hill by Josh Brothers, leaving him with a strong 5th place finish.
However, the standout player on the one-loss side was emerging phenom Josh Brothers, who took wins over Ed Culhane 9-7, Eddie Abraham 9-7, Sean Morgan 9-8, Jeremy Sossei 9-6, and Mike Davis 9-8, which lined up a semi-final match with Tony Robles. Tony knocked Josh over to the one-oss side earlier in the event, and Josh was looking forward to the rematch.
Josh Brothers was poised to win after keeping Tony in his seat for the first three games, leading 3-0 and continuing to lead the whole set. However, Tony showed a lot of grit was able to come from behind to win the set in hill-hill nail-biter. Tony's win over Josh set up a rematch in the finals between Tony Robles and Stevie Moore. In this true double-elimination final, Tony would have to win two sets against Stevie to claim the win.
PoolActionTV.com was at the event to stream the feature matches throughout the tournament. Ray Hansen, along with other contributors, helped out to provide live streaming and commentary to the fans following the event.
In the first set, Stevie Moore held the lead throughout, but at 7-6 Tony was able to grind back to and win the next three games to take the set 9-6. They then moved into the second set, but Stevie remained dominant and closed out a 9-4 win to defend his title as NYC 9-ball Champion. Congratulations to Stevie Moore on achieving this notable feat… NYC pool fans will surely be watching in 2011 to see if anyone can steal away this title.
