Jonas Souto
It is impossible to watch, let alone report on every match in a tournament as large as the International Open and its eight separate events. For the most part, our reporting on the event is a matter of selection, looking, for example, for any ‘headlines’ that might take precedence. Like any other news journal, we’re not as interested in the “Dog Bites Man” kind of stories, as much as we like to hear about the “Man Bites Dog” stories.
On Day One of the International Open, there were all kinds of stories emerging from the tables and it wasn’t always about a ‘featured’ match that played out on ‘center stage,’ known as the Accu-Stats Arena. There were US players squaring off against international stars (Austria’s Mario He vs. Brandon Shuff from the USA, Spain’s Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz against USA’s Donny Mills, for examples). There were intriguing matchups among American players with different FargoRates, like Shane Van Boening (841) against Tommy Tokoph (730) or Anthony Meglino (780) vs. Mosconi Cup team member Billy Thorpe (774). But of particular interest to us was a two-generation matchup between Spain’s Jonas Souto and BCA Hall of Famer, Johnny Archer. It was one of the last matchups on Monday night and it was kind of ‘flying under the radar’ a bit.
Souto (791), who’s only been on AZBilliards’ ‘radar’ since 2021, is in the midst of his best recorded earnings year (with us) and is probably best remembered as the winner of the Super Billiards Expo’s Open 9-Ball Pro Players Championship last year, at which he defeated Jayson Shaw in the final. Archer (756), of course, is (as Souto would describe him after their match) “a legend,” whose exploits date back before AZBilliards began to publish event reports. So, two relatively seasoned Pros, competing at opposite ends of their respective careers. And the match that they played reflected differences in their styles, an expected degree of high competency and a desire to win that’s the hallmark of any good player, regardless of experience at the game or the amount of years that they’ve travelled around the sun.
The match got off to a slow start, both players trying to find their rhythm. Archer won the lag and broke dry, which led to an immediate series of back-and-forth safety plays. Archer was the one who opened it up, but he opened it up for Souto to ‘walk through.’ And he did, running the table to take a lead that he wouldn’t regain until the match was five games from being over. Not only did Souto break dry in his first attempt, but he scratched, which gave Archer the opportunity to do his own table run, which he did, to create the first of the match’s seven ties.
Archer took his first lead at the end of game 3, but it was an enforced error by Souto, which opened that door. Archer dropped two balls on the break, but couldn’t see the 2-ball he needed to make and pushed out. Souto made a great shot on the 2-ball, left himself with a connect-the-dots table and promptly rattled the 3-ball in a hole. Archer ran the table to take his first lead at 2-1. Souto broke dry, pushed, Archer took a shot and scratched which allowed Souto to knot things at 2-2.
They did this two-step again, with a lot of safety play. Archer broke the tie on Souto’s break, and Souto created the next one off of Archer’s break. Souto attempted a 2-9 combo and missed it and then tried it with 5-9 and made it. Archer put together a two-rack run off his own and then, Souto’s dry break. At 5-3, Archer ‘pushed’ off the break and Souto ran the table to pull back within one. Souto broke dry again and scratched, allowing Archer to get back out in front by two at 6-4.
At this point in time, while there was certainly evidence of the competency mentioned above, it didn’t appear likely that however it turned out, this match was going to make it into any International Open highlight reel. And the beat went on. . .
Archer broke rack #11 dry and scratched, which opened a door for Souto to chalk up two in a row, to include his (and the) first ‘break and run’ of the match, which tied things up at 6-6. Archer broke #13 dry and after some safety maneuvering, Souto got himself in a position to finish the rack, only to put himself out of position for a shot at the 8-ball. Archer finished the rack to take the lead again, by one at 7-6.
Souto answered with his second ‘break and run’ to re-establish a tie (the 6th of the match) and then, after Archer broke rack #15 and scratched, he ran the table to take the lead for the first time since he opened with a table-run off of Archer’s break in the very first game.
Souto broke rack #16 and after making a couple of difficult shots look easy, he made an unforced error (making an easy shot seem difficult) shooting at the 5-ball. Archer cleared the table to establish the match’s 7th tie. There was, at this juncture, a bit of a mischievous grin popping up on Archer’s face when he stepped to the table. It wasn’t really an “I’ve got this!” kind of a grin, as much as it was a “whatever the hell happens, I am happy to be doing this” grin.
Archer dropped two balls breaking rack #17 and almost completed a bank shot on the 1-ball, while making it difficult for Souto to see it when Archer was done. Souto jumped a ball, which successfully made contact with the 1-ball, while at the other end of the table, the 6-ball dropped into a hole. Souto finished the rack to reach the hill first (9-8).
Souto broke and dropped two balls, but after a few exchanges, it was Archer who was able to line up the 9-ball first. And oddly enough, it was a shot that during practice, before the match, Archer had missed. As he is wont to do (and a lesson for all), instead of moving on to the next ball, he reset the shot, tried and missed again. He kept at it, pulling the cue ball back, repositioning the target ball and taking the shot until he sunk the ball, and satisfied, moved on to further practice. That satisfaction played out particularly well for him in the 18th game of his match versus Souto. He tied the match up at double hill.
Archer broke the final game, dropping the 1-ball, but was forced to shoot at a 2-ball with no clear path to a hole. He played a nice ‘safe’ with it, forcing Souto to attempt a side-to-side, rail-first bank to hit the 2-ball, which it did, dropping it into the corner pocket. However, Souto couldn’t ‘see’ the 3-ball and was forced to jump at it. He did so, made contact, but did not sink the ball, leaving Archer with a table that had ‘Uh, oh!’ written all over it. But Johnny rattled one of the remaining balls in a pocket and turned the table back over to Souto. Souto won game #19 and advanced to a meetup with Hong Kong’s Robbie Capito at 9:30 p.m. this evening (Tuesday).
It was a tightly-fought contest and though not as ‘perfect’ as either one of them would have liked, neither of them flinched for even a moment; each looking serene and/or concentrated on what they were doing, no matter the table or match circumstances. They battled and fought every step of the way, demonstrating flashes of thinking and shooting brilliance which overshadowed the unforced errors and the ‘breaks’ that weren’t going right for either one of them. The best applause they received from the handful of spectators who hung around to watch it end, didn’t happen when it was over, but happened the moment Archer sunk the 9-ball in the game that tied it up for the last time at double-hill.
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