Kelly Fisher
She knew, going into the final day of competition, that she’d already won the WPBA’s 9-Ball Ghost Challenge Tournament of Champions. Kelly Fisher knew this because no one in the lineup of two matches to be played that last day could catch her when it came to points. For its Tournament of Champions, held from September 1-5, the WPBA employed a new format, changing from the double elimination format of the four previous 9-Ball Ghost Challenge events (three of them won by Fisher) to a Round Robin format. This format assigned points, 4 to 7 of them, to each player upon completion of a series of head-to-head ghost challenge matches of 10 games each.
Though originally planned for eight competitors, work-related circumstances brought that number down to 6 by the time the tournament started and just prior to the start, Line Kjorsvik had to back out for undisclosed reasons. On each of the five days, one of the five remaining competitors was scheduled to compete against Kjorsvik and in her absence, drew a bye. It was Wei Tzu-Chien on Tuesday, Dawn Hopkins on Wednesday, Monica Webb on Thursday, Jeannie Seaver on Friday and Kelly Fisher on Saturday. By that time, Fisher was sporting 23 points to Hopkins’ and Seaver’s 13, Webb’s 14, and Tzu-Chien’s 15. Even with 7 points for defeating an opponent by 40 points or more, none of them could catch Fisher. There was, though, at the end of the day (tournament), a ferocious final battle between Wei Tzu-Chien and Monica Webb upon which hinged three out of the four remaining payout spots (Fisher had already won).
As with the other four preliminary ghost challenge events, a player could score a maximum of 10 or 15 points per rack; 10 points if they ran out after choosing to take ball-in-hand after the break, or 15 points, if they chose to play from wherever the cue ball lay after the break. A miss in any rack would award the player the number of balls they successfully potted in that rack. The highest score of the five-day event was chalked up by Fisher on Friday, when she defeated Monica Webb 107-75. It was one of only four scores over 100. Wei Tzu-Chien tallied the second highest score on the same day, downing Dawn Hopkins 106-59. It was the only victory in the entire event that awarded its winner (Tzu-Chien) the maximum 7 points for a larger-than-40-ball differential in the final score. Fisher had the third and fourth highest score; 105-77 over Hopkins on Thursday and 104-91 over We Tzu-Chien the day before.
The lowest score in a victory – 89 – happened twice. On Wednesday, Hopkins downed Seaver 89-57. On the following day, Thursday, Seaver scored 89 to Wei Tzu-Chien’s 84.
At the end of Day 1 on Tuesday, Fisher, having defeated Seaver by her lowest score of the entire event, 91-59, was in the lead with 6 points. Hopkins, who’d defeated Webb in the tightest match of the event, 94-90, had 5, while Seaver and Webb had four points each. Tzu-Chien had not played. Fisher’s single-point lead was never relinquished and by the end of day two, it remained a single-point lead. Webb had added six points with an 89-57 win over Seaver, while Kelly added five points with her 104-91 victory over Tzu-Chien.
On Day Three, Fisher added six more points with a 105-77 victory over Hopkins, as Seaver and Tzu-Chien locked up in another of the event’s tight battles; an 89-84 win for Seaver. Tzu-Chien had been the only other player to win one of the four preliminary events. Her second loss in this Tournament of Champions, against Seaver, sealed her fate, making an opportunity to catch Fisher a low probability. At the end of Day Three (with one less match), Tzu-Chien was behind by nine points (17-8).
Day Four began at noon on Friday with a match between Fisher and Webb, which Wei Tzu-Chien was likely to have been watching very closely. If Webb pulled off a win, it would stop Fisher’s scoring at 21 points. Fisher, scheduled to play Kjorsvik on Saturday, would receive a bye on that day and if Tzu-Chien could add seven points to her score on Day Four, she’d go into the final day only six points behind (21-15), giving her a chance at tying or possibly winning (with a 40-point differential in her match versus Webb). The first ‘fly in that ointment’ was Fisher, who played her best match of the tournament on Friday, chalking up 107 points to Webb’s 75 and adding six points to finish her efforts with 23 points. Though an hour later, Tzu-Chien would bring her best game of the tournament to the table against Hopkins – a 106-59 win that would add the seven points she was looking to score – it fell short of Fisher’s lead by eight points.
Hopkins and Seaver played the opening match of the final day. Seaver defeated Hopkins 94-66 to add six points to her score, for a (significant) total of 19. Hopkins finished with a total of 17 points. This lent an air of possibility to the tournament’s final match between Tzu-Chien (with 15 points) and Monica Webb (with 14). If Webb won the match by less than 20 points, she’d end up with 19 points, overall, and so would Tzu-Chien, who would receive four points in such a loss. This would have created a three-way tie between Tzu-Chien, Webb and Seaver.
There was, in other words, something at stake in the final match. The three-way tie would have triggered tie-breaking rules, governed by total ball count. If Webb won the final match, Tzu-Chien would finish in 2nd place (376 balls), Webb would be 3rd (341) and Seaver would finish in 4th (299). But if Tzu-Chien won the match, finishing with 20 points for 2nd place, Seaver would be 3rd with 19 and Webb would finish 4th with 18 points. Financially, the win for Webb wouldn’t have changed anything for Tzu-Chien, who would have finished 2nd in any case, but for Webb, it was a $200 difference between a 3rd or 4th place finish.
The match was correspondingly tight. Midway through the 10-rack match, Tzu-Chien was in the lead over Webb, but only by seven balls (49-42). As Tzu-Chien was organizing her 6th rack, Webb took aim at the 2-ball in her 6th rack. She’d pocketed one on the break and then, opting for ball in hand, she dropped the 1-ball. Looking at a high-percentage shot at the 2-ball (side to side in corner pocket), Webb applied some serious draw to the cue ball, which, on contact, came flying back, fast, for position on the 3-ball. The 2-ball, though, rattled hard in its designated pocket and Webb had to settle for only two balls in that 6th rack. Tzu-Chien broke and, with ball in hand, cleared her 6th rack and suddenly the score was 59-44.
In her 7th rack, Webb opted out of the ball-in-hand option in the hopes of closing in on Tzu-Chien’s lead with 15 points. She dropped two balls on the break and made a long, corner-to-corner shot to make her third ball. She completed that rack to chalk up those 15 points and for a moment, they were tied at 59-59. Tzu-Chien would re-capture the lead when she completed her 7th rack with 10 points to make it 69-59.
Tzu-Chien checked Webb’s score on her monitor after breaking the 8th rack. She’d dropped four balls on the break and decided not to take ball in hand, looking for an ‘answering’ 15 points. All well and good, but she missed her first shot. At the end of the 8th rack, Tzu-Chien’s lead was down to four balls at 73-69.
Tzu-Chien opted out of ball in hand again in approaching her 9th rack. Webb took ball in hand for her 9th rack. Kelly Fisher joined commentators Cheryl Baglin and Loree Jon Hasson in the virtual broadcast booth to watch the nail-biting finish to the tournament’s final match. They both ran their racks, but Tzu-Chien was awarded 15 for not taking ball in hand, while Webb added only 10 because she did. The score was now 88-79.
Assuming a runout for both of them in the final rack, Tzu-Chien could not be caught, even if Webb opted to not take ball in hand for 15 points. It made Tzu-Chien’s decision not to take ball in hand for the final rack an easy one. Webb, having dropped the 1-ball on the break was looking at a straight, side-to-side shot at the 2-ball and decided to go for the 15 points anyway. The table was clearing nicely for her until she put a little too much follow on her shot at the 8-ball and the cue ball followed it right in, finishing her match at 87 points.
Tzu-Chien, with two balls left on the table, stepped to her monitor and noted that Webb had scratched. Already ahead in points by one – 88-87 – she stepped to the table to sink the 8-ball, attempting a sharp cut, and missed the shot, finishing things at 95-87.
“Well done, Wei-Wei,” said Fisher from her ‘virtual’ booth at home when Tzu-Chien and Webb stepped up close to their respective monitors. “It was tight. Close match, exciting.”
Event coordinator Angela Janic joined the remote broadcast ‘party’ and made the results official. Kelly Fisher won the event title with 23 points and a 407 ball total. Wei Tzu-Chien was 2nd with 20 points and a 376 ball total. Jeannie Sever was 3rd with 19 and 299. Monica’s loss in the final match dropped her into 4th place with 18 points and 341 total balls. Dawn Hopkins closed out the field with 17 points and 296 total balls.
“I’m really, really pleased,” said Fisher of her victory. “Very happy.”
She spoke then of what might have been; how she would have liked to “not miss as much” as she had and how, ideally, she and her competitors are always looking to chalk up the “perfect score.”
“We’re all very competitive,” she said, “trying to play the perfect game and be as consistent as we can. That’s what we practice for and all try to do”
“I really enjoy playing the ‘ghost,” she added. “It’s been a part of my practice routine for years. It suits my game because I’m not very good at safety play.”
Fisher thanked the WPBA for a “great event, as always.” She also expressed her enjoyment of the new format.
“ I liked the Round Robin format,” she said. “It’s a good way to make it an open, competitive game.”
The WPBA thanked tournament director Angela Janic, as well as livestream technician Jennifer Hamilton. They also thanked all of the event’s players, sponsors and commentators, to include Janic, WPBA’s President Dean Roeseler, Loree Jon Hasson and Cheryl Baglin. “Stay tuned,” noted the WPBA on its Facebook page for information about future virtual tournaments.
