Jessica-Lynn Greibsland and Fernando Paulino
It looked for a while there, near the end, as if Jennifer Lynn-Greibesland was going to go undefeated and claim her first Tri-State Tour title. She got off to a hot 5-0 start in the finals against Fernando Paulino, whom she’d defeated previously in the hot seat match, but Paulino rallied and took the last three games of the match to claim his own first Tri-State title. The $1,000-added event, held on Saturday, August 15, drew 46 entrants to Steinway Billiards in Astoria (Queens), NY.
Following wins over Stewart Warnock, Duc Lam (double hill), Kapriel Delimelkonoglu, and Richard Ng (double hill), Paulino squared off against Alex Osipov in a winners’ side semifinal. Lynn-Greibesland, in the meantime, faced Nevine Lepovac. Paulino advanced to the hot seat match 7-4 over Osipov, and was joined by Greibesland, who’d sent Lepovac west 6-4. Greibesland grabbed the hot seat 10-7 and waited on Paulino’s return.
Osipov and Lepovac moved over and picked up Richard Ng and Gary Serrano, respectively. Ng had survived a double hill fight against Rhys Chen and defeated Thomas Rice 7-5 to draw Osipov. Serrano had eliminated Brian Dorfman 6-3 and Mike Figueroa 6-2 to face Lepovac.
Osipov downed Ng 7-5, as Serrano was busy eliminating Lepovac 6-5. Osipov took the subsequent quarterfinal match over Serrano 8-5 to earn himself a re-match versus Paulino in the semifinals. Paulino defeated him a second time by the same 7-4 score to earn his own re-match against Greibesland.
In spite of the wait, Greibesland came out gunning, chalking up five straight to open the finals. Paulino, though, fought right back with five of his own, at which point they battle back and forth, one game at a time to a 7-7 tie. Paulino closed it out with another five-rack run to claim his first Tri-State title.
Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at Steinway Billiards, as well as sponsors Ozone Billiards, Sterling-Gaming, Kamui Tips, Ron Vitello, Phil Capelle, BlueBook Publishing, Human Kinetics, and Bloodworth Ball Cleaners. The next Tri-State event, scheduled for Saturday, August 29-30, will be hosted by Amsterdam Billiards in Manhattan.
