According to records available to us, until May of this year, TJ Davis hadn’t cashed in a tournament in four years. His last recorded payout came when he was runner-up in a Lone Star Billiard Tour stop in July, 2013. He broke that absence chain and got busy again this past May on the fifth stop of The Omega Billiards Tour when he finished fifth. He followed that with a 9th place finish in June, a 17th place finish in September and last month (October), took third on the tour’s 10th stop. All of which put him in 16th place in the tour rankings. On the weekend of November 11-12, Davis leapfrogged over 11 competitors on that ranking list (from 16th to 6th place) with an undefeated run through 98 entrants on the tour’s 11th (second-to-last) stop. Davis’ opponent in the finals, Crispian Ng, did a little leapfrogging of his own, jumping from eighth place to two ahead of Davis in 4th place. The $1,700-added event drew its 98 entrants to The Billiard Den in Richardson, TX.
Davis opened his undefeated run with a victory over Tony Sulsar (8-4), who started the weekend 11 spots ahead of Davis in the tour rankings and ended up one spot behind him in 7th place. Davis moved on to defeat Hector Guerrero, Jersey Jack Lynch, and Albert Nieto, who started and finished the weekend in third place in the tour rankings. This set Davis up in a winners’ side semifinal against Ricki Casper, who’d just sent Ng to the loss side. Robert Clark, in the meantime, faced Jalal Yousef in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Davis defeated Casper 8-3 and was joined in the hot seat match by Clark, who’d sent Yousef to the loss side 8-6. In a straight-up race to 8, Davis claimed the hot seat 8-5 over Clark, and waited for Ng to complete a five-match, loss-side run and face him in the finals.
On the loss side, Ng opened his five-match march to the finals with an 8-6 win over Justin Whitehead, and followed it with an 8-3 win over Nieto, to pick up Yousef. Casper drew Chris Rickman, who’d much earlier, on the winners’ side, handed the tour’s #1-ranked player, Rick Stanley, his first loss, and then, on the loss side, defeated Juan Bastista 6-5 (Batista racing to 7) and Mike Voelkering 6-4 (Voelkering, #2 in tour rankings before and after this stop, had handed Stanley his second loss).
Ng advanced to the quarterfinals with a double hill win over Yousef (8-8; Yousef, racing to 9). He was joined by Rickman, who’d eliminated Casper 6-2. Ng gave up only one rack to Rickman in the quarterfinals and in a straight-up race to 8 in the semifinals, gave up only three to Clark. Davis completed his undefeated run with an 8-6 win over Ng in the finals.
Tour director Melinda Bailey thanked the ownership and staff at The Billiard Den for their hospitality, as well as sponsors Michael Hoang of OMEGA Billiards Supply, FargoRate.com and OB Cues. The next stop on the Omega Billiard Tour will be the tour’s Season Finale, restricted to players who have played in at least five stops on this year’s tour. The $5,000-added event will be hosted by Rusty’s Billiards in Fort Worth, TX on December 16-17.
