Lukas Fracasso-Verner
The last time Lukas Fracasso-Verner won the annual George “Ginky” Sansouci Memorial Tournament, back in 2018, he entered the 143-entrant Amateur field and promptly lost his opening match. He had to win 12 matches on the loss side to get into the finals against Chuck Allie. The perseverance of fighting back that long and far from an opening-round loss and then winning was a remarkable feat in and of itself, but what made it even more notable was the fact that at the time, Fracasso-Verner had yet to graduate from high school. This past weekend (May 27-29) now 21, he signed on to the ProAm division of the 11th Annual “Ginky” Memorial (the event was not held in 2021) and took the ‘undefeated’ route through a field of 21 entrants.
In the absence of the annual event’s defending champion, Mika Immonen, Fracasso-Verner downed five straight opponents to claim the ProAm title. After being awarded a bye, Fracasso-Verner shut out Ricky Geronimo, and sent veteran NYC-and-vicinity’s Mhet Vergara to the loss side 8-6 to draw Del Sim in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Gregorio Sanchez, in the meantime, also after a bye, downed the eventual runner-up, Raphael Dabreo 8-2 and Aidan Wagner, double hill, to pick up Jonathan Smith in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Sanchez and Smith battled to double hill before Sanchez prevailed to punch his ticket to the hot seat match. Fracasso-Verner joined him once he’d sent Sim to the loss side 8-5. Fracasso-Verner claimed the hot seat 8-4 and waited for Dabreo to complete his seven-match, loss-side streak and reach him for the finals.
On the loss side, Dabreo was four matches into that streak when Smith showed up. Dabreo had recently chalked up wins # 3 & #4 against Vergara 8-6 and Ryan Boursse 8-4 to reach Smith. Sim drew Max Watanabe, who was working on his own loss-side winning streak; six matches that would take him as far as the quarterfinals. He’d recently eliminated Aidan Wagner, double hill, and Michael Rodriguez 8-5.
Three of Watanabe’s last five matches went double-hill, the last of which sent Sim home, while Dabreo was tied up eliminating Smith 8-4. Dabreo ended Watanabe’s run 8-2 in the subsequent quarterfinals.
The semifinal was the only double-hill match that Dabreo had played to that point and the second for Sanchez. Dabreo prevailed and turned to compete in his second double-hill battle. He didn’t get the chance. Fracasso-Verner and Dabreo agreed to a split, leaving Fracasso-Verner as the official winner of his second “Ginky” Memorial event and his first in the ProAm division.
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