Derek Formby
The $1,000-added Viking Cues’ Q City 9-Ball 2020 Bar Box Tour Championships, postponed until this past weekend (Jan. 9-10), drew 104 entrants to Break & Run Billiards in Chesnee, SC. Derek Formby came from the loss side to double dip hot seat occupant Benny Walters to claim the event title. Formby had met Walters in a winners’ side semifinal and won three on the loss side to meet and defeat him twice in a true double elimination final.
They’d met first in that winners’ side semifinal, as Dustin Coe and Greg Dix met in the other one. Walters and Formby battled to double hill, before Walters won the only match of three that he’d play against Formby and advanced to the hot seat match. Coe joined him after defeating Dix 6-6 (Dix racing to 8). Walters claimed the hot seat over Coe in his second straight double hill win.
On the loss side, Dix picked up tour veteran BJ Ussery, the highest handicap present at this tour championship, who’d defeated Kevin Ping 12-1 and Gary South 12-4. Formby drew Hunter White, another tour veteran, who’d eliminated Jimmy Bird 10-2 and Johnny Walker 10-4 to reach Formby.
With White racing to 10, it was Formby who advanced to the quarterfinals over him, 6-8. Formby was joined by Dix, who’d defeated Ussery 8-9 (Ussery racing to 12). At about midnight on Sunday night, Formby and Dix initiated what would turn out to be a double hill quarterfinal, which eventually advanced Formby into the semifinals against Dustin Coe.
Formby and Coe, in a straight up race to 6, also battled to double hill in those semifinals. Formby survived again to earn a shot at Walters in the hot seat.
In the opening set of the true double elimination final, Formby found himself engaged in his third straight double hill match and for the third straight time, he won. Now tied at one match apiece, Formby and Walters battled for the bar box tour championship. Formby pulled out in front in the second set and stayed there to win it 6-2.
Tour director Herman Parker thanked the ownership and staff at Break & Run Billiards, as well as title sponsor Viking Cues, Bar Pool Tables, JB Magic Templates, AZBilliards, Tickler Pool Ball Washing Machine, Skyline Construction, Federal Savings Bank Mortgage Division and Dirty South Grind Apparel Co.
The Viking Cues’ Q City 9-Ball Tour will be right back at it this weekend, Jan. 16-17. The tour will hold a $1,000-added tournament at Sonny’s Billiards & Bistro in Princeton, WV.
