Thursday night will go down in U.S. Open history. After the Hall of Fame banquet where Belinda Calhoun and Rodney Morris were feted for their accomplishments in the game we went back to the tournament room little knowing what was in store for us.
Jayson Shaw and Ko Pin Yi have both had an amazing week of play, mowing down one opponent after another. Last night they met one another and it appeared that Ko would walk away easily with the win. Shaw couldn’t get his break to work at all and Ko was making everything he could see. But then, with the score at 10-4 in favor of Ko in the race to 11 games, Shaw found his break. From that point on he totally controlled the table and all Ko could ever get was an opportunity to kick or jump. Shaw rallied back rack by rack and wound up winning the match 11-10.
This leaves us with only four undefeated players. Jeremy Jones beat Alex Pagulayan to gain his berth there while Jung Lin Chang got by Brandon Shuff to face him. Jayson Shaw is there to face off against David Alcaide who defeated A. Al Shammari to gain his spot in the untarnished foursome.
On the one-loss side of the brackets Y.L. Cheng will face A. Al Ahammari and Dennis Orcullo will take on Ko Pin Yi. Brandon Shuff will face Shane Van Boening and Young Ko will face Alex Pagulayan.
There is nothing left but a field of heavyweights and any of them could wind up on the final table. To watch the action live just go to accu-stats.com and sign up for the stream!
