Joshua Filler
It’s looking like a pretty good two weeks in Virginia for Joshua Filler so far. After a win at the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship over the weekend, Filler took down the International Big Foot 10-Ball Challenge on Tuesday night with a dominating win over Mika Immonen.
Filler booked his spot in the finals with wins over Alex Kazakis, Denis Grabe and then WPA World #1 ranked Aloysius Yapp. Yapp led their semi-final match by the score of 5-3, but Filler never looked like he doubted what the final result would be. He took control of the match at 6-5 down and won six straight racks to win the match 11-6.
Immonen’s spot in the finals came via wins over John Morra, Alex Pagulayan and International One Pocket Open winner Roberto Gomez. Immonen looked to be in complete control early in his match against Gomez, but he saw his early 5-1 lead disappear when Gomez won six out of seven games to take a 7-6 lead of his own. Next it was Immonen’s turn to go on a run, as he then won five of the next six racks for the 11-8 win.
While the size of the 10’ Diamond Big Foot table led to safety battles in almost every rack of the finals, Filler was able to take a 2-0 lead with a break and run in rack two. That would be the only break and run either player could muster in the finals.
Filler’s cool confidence at the table is a sight to see. His demeanor indicates that he expects to win every match, and pocketing the balls is just a mere formality. Filler displayed absolute dominance to take control of this match and the frustration started to take hold for Immonen. After Filler won the first seven racks, he had a TPArating of .929, while Immonen could only muster a .250.
Immonen was able to mount a bit of a comeback, as all players at this level are going to do. A couple great shots by Immonen earned him back to back racks for an 8-2 scoreline and a careless shot late in rack ten by Filler left Immonen out for 8-3. That would be the end of the comeback for Immonen as that careless 7-ball was the last mistake Filler would make. He won the final three racks for an 11-3 win and his first title on the 10’ Big Foot table.
Both Filler and Immonen are undefeated in the main event and await the redraw into the single elimination bracket today. They will both face an opponent with one loss at 9pm tonight.
The International 9-Ball Open will continue play all of this week and can be watched as part of the online PPV for this event at https://www.onsitepool.com/accustats/. For the first time in the history of this event, fans can watch action on any table as part of the PPV coverage.
Follow all of the action with Live Scoring and online brackets for the 9-Ball. AzBilliards is working along with digitalpool.com to help put those brackets online.
