As Thursday winds down at the Mid-Atlantic 9-Ball Championship, the top players are starting to separate themselves from the pack with all but a few exceptions.
The winners side contains players such as Efren Reyes, Francisco Bustamante, Danny Harriman, Jose Parica, Mika Immonen, Corey Deuel and Buddy Hall. Not joining them on the winners side is Earl Strickland, who held a 6-3 lead over 'Machine Gun' Luc Salvas, but ended up losing 11-7. This was not the most heartbreaking loss as Canadian Champion John Horsfall held a 9-1 lead over Young Hwa Jeong (pictured), but ended up losing 11-10. Jeong will face Niels Feijen on Friday, while Salvas will play Player of the Year Francisco Bustamante.
Other marquee matches on Friday include Reyes vs Parica, Harriman vs Nick Varner, Jim Rempe vs Charlie Williams and Mika Immonen vs Corey Deuel.
Players advancing through the one-loss side include Ralf Souquet, Joey Korsiak, Jimmy Wetch and Keith McCready. Wetch and McCready advanced via forfeit but it is just as well as McCready declared early on Thursday that from now on he would be 'Dr. McCready' and would be performing surgery on all opponents!
We have more pictures from Diana Hoppe in our photo gallery as well as complete brackets.
Photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe
