Max Lechner (Karl Kantrowitz)
The International 9-Ball Open is now down to just sixteen players in the final single elimination bracket. The final sixteen undefeated players in the first stage of the event were redrawn into the single elimination stage, with each of those players being randomly drawn to face one of the final sixteen players with one loss from stage one. All of those players had one match on Wednesday night and that leaves the event with sixteen players.
That first round of single elimination matches spelled the end of the line for sixteen players, including reigning champion Jayson Shaw, Mosconi Cup Team Member Earl Strickland, Alex Pagulayan, Ralf Souquet, Young Gun Nathan Childress and World #1 ranked Aloysius Yapp. Yapp’s elimination was a quick and painless one, with Austria’s Max Lechner scoring a decisive 10-4 win in the final feature match of the night.
Second round matches lined up Thursday include Lechner vs Mika Immonen, Albin Ouschan vs Joshua Filler, Shane Van Boening vs Wiktor Zielinski and Fedor Gorst vs Dennis Orcollo.
In addition to the eight matches today in the Open 9-Ball event, the Junior Invitational Championship kicks off today, with sixteen of the top male and eight of the top female juniors in the country competing.
Follow all of the action with Live Scoring and online brackets for the 9-Ball, Boys Junior 9-Ball and Girls Junior 9-Ball. AzBilliards is working along with digitalpool.com to help put those brackets online.
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.
