Holden Chin, Alex Kazakis and Eklent Kaci
Two of Europe’s hottest young players took advantage of being in the states to drop in on stop 14 of the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour on April 28th - 29th at Raxx Pool Room in West Hempstead, NY.
All eyes were on Albania’s Eklent Kaci and Greece’s Alex Kazakis (fresh off of his runner-up finish at the World Pool Series event) and fans in attendance were wondering who would be able to challenge them on this day. Kaci would start off his tournament with two quick wins, but a hill-hill loss to Bruce Nagle sent him packing to the one loss side on Saturday. Kazakis would get by Nagle 9-3 and then defeat Zion Zvi 9-6 for the hot-seat.
Kaci got acclimated to the left side of the board pretty quickly, and other than a close 9-7 win over Holden Chin, would score convincing wins over everyone put in front of him. Zvi fought hard in his semi-final match with Kaci, but lost 9-6 to send Kaci to the finals against Kazakis.
The final match was another close one, but it was Kazakis scoring a 9-6 win in one set for first place.
Sundays second chance tournament saw Holden Chin drop his first match of the day (3-2 to Ray Lee) and then bounce back with five straight wins, including 3-0 and 3-1 wins over Lee in the finals for first place.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will take off the month of May, but will be back on June 2nd - 3rd at Snookers in Providence RI for another $1,500 added main event and $500 added second chance tournament.
