With a 13-8 victory in the finals, Charlie Williams has won the Big Apple 9-Ball Challenge.
Williams went undefeated through the three day event, and capped off the tournament with back-to-back wins over 'The Magician' Efren Reyes. First an 11-9 victory for the hot-seat and then the 13-8 win in the finals.
Williams had troubles even getting to Master Billiards for the event. Returning from playing in the 2003 World Stars Invitational Team Cup, Williams was in the air when the blackout hit New York. His flight that was supposed to land at JFK Airport, ended up landing in Hartford CT. Upon landing in Hartford, Williams discovered that his luggage was missing.
While his bags would be found midway through through the tournament, his pool cues are still missing in action. This left Williams playing with borrowed cues for the entire event. "Counting jump cues, I borrowed seven different cues" said Williams after the event. "But they all had Predator shafts" Williams quickly added. (Williams is sponsored by Predator cues.) "I think from now on, I am just going to borrow cues and win all the tournaments!" Williams commented.
Williams play was flawless all weekend. He survived a number of close calls, but was always able to dig down and get the wins at the end.
Williams won $12,000 for the event, while Reyes settled for $7,000 in second place prize money. Rodney Morris and Jose Parica filled out the top four spots.
Check out our online brackets for all of the match results.
Complete Payouts:
1st Charlie Williams $12,000
2nd Efren Reyes $7,000
3rd Rodney Morris $4,500
4th Jose Parica $3,000
5th/6th Francisco Bustamante, Alex Pagulayan $2,000
7th/8th Ching-Shun Yang, Hsiao-Lan Fang $1,400
9th/12th Alex Lely, Neils Feijen, Nick Varner, Santos Sambajon $1,100
13th/16th Johnny Archer, Bill Ferguson, Mika Immonen, Jimmy Wetch $900
17th/24th Brian Yi, Ralf Souquet, Troy Frank, Mike Davis, Max Eberle, Fabio Petroni, Imran Majid, Joey Korsiak $750
