Jonas Souto Comino
We don’t come across a lot of professional pool events happening above the 47th North Latitude line which lies just south of Seattle, WA. There are a few international cities above that line, including Vienna, which hosts a regular stop on the Euro Tour, but we’ve never heard of a pool tournament in Bern, Switzerland, for example, or Urumqi, China, Astana in Kazakhstan or Vladivostock, Russia, for that matter. But a strong contingent of professionals headed north to Seattle this past weekend, March 28-30, to compete in the World Nineball Tour ranking event, the 2025 Seattle 9-Ball Open. Though the 64-entrant field featured a number of Canadians and a strong contingent of American competitors, it was won by Spain’s Jonas Souto, who went undefeated through three opponents in a double-elimination Stage 1 of the event and four more in the 16-entrant single-elimination Stage 2 to claim the event title. The event drew its 64 competitors to OX Billiards in Seattle.
Team USA’s captain in the 2024 Mosconi Cup, Sky Woodard also went undefeated through Stage 1 and won three of his four matches in Stage 2. He and Souto met in the finals and played a race-to-13 double-hill match to end it.
Stage 1 of the event whittled the original field of 64 down to 16 competitors, eight on each side of the double-elimination bracket. There were, in effect, four winners’ side mini-brackets of 16 players each, which took three matches to determine the two players from each mini-bracket who’d advance to Stage 2.
In races to 9, in his 16-player mini-bracket, Souto got by Jesse Johnson (1), Max Adams (4) and Tyrel Blowers (2) and advanced to Stage 2. Indonesia’s Edward Koyongian, from the same mini-bracket advanced to Stage 2, as well. Woodward’s trip to Stage 2 saw him down his first two opponents 9-1, Chris Aldrich and William Pearson. Blake Baker chalked up five against him in the next round, but Blake moved to the loss side as Wooward moved on to single-elimination. From the same mini-bracket of 16, Sam Henderson advanced to Stage 2. The other four from the winners’ side to advance were Stephen Folan, Payne McBride, John Morra and Andri Januarta (also from Indonesia).
Of the eight that advanced to Stage 2 from the loss side of the double-elimination, six of them had to win just one match on that side of the bracket to advance. Bulgaria’s Georgi Georgiev, the event’s defending champion, who’d lost the last qualifying round on the winners’ side to Payne McBride, beat Max Adams 9-5 to advance. Lucas Fracasso-Verner who’d lost his last qualifying round to Folan, downed Joe Spence 9-1 to advance. Tommy Tokoph, who’d lost his last qualifier to Henderson got by Daniel Sardoncillo 9-5. Blake Baker, who’d lost his last qualifying round to Sky Woodward, fought to double-hill in his one and only loss-side match, eliminating Prathamesh Sawant to advance. Raymond Linares, who’d lost his last qualifying match to Koyongian, downed Bo Belonia 9-5 and advanced, as well. Tyrel Blowers, who’d lost his last qualifier to Souto, downed April Larson 9-6 to join the advancing crowd.
Stephen Holem, who’d lost his last qualifier to Sam Henderson had to win two on the loss side before meeting and defeating Paul Song 9-4 and advancing to single elimination. Jesse Johnson, who’d lost in his last qualifying round to Souto had to win three on the loss side, ahead of a 9-7 win over James Davee to advance.
In races to 11, the 16 players who advanced to Stage 2, single elimination, played 14 matches before Souto and Woodward met in the finals. One might think that at this stage of the 64-entrant proceedings that most of those matches would be ‘competitive,’ to the extent of finishing anywhere from 11-7 to double hill, on average. Not here, not this time.
The opening round of single elimination in those races to 11 saw the first players to be eliminated chalking up, on average, only five racks-against. The opening round saw Stage 2’s only shutout, when Souto defeated Jesse Johnson in a rematch. There was only one double-hill match in that opening round (of the two in single-elimination) with Tyrel Blowers eliminating Edward Koyongian. Two competitors won six racks, two others won two and there was one each that managed five and nine.
Though partially influenced by the data-eccentricities of a diminishing number of competitors, the second round got worse in the racks-against department, with the average racks-against coming down to just over four (and percentage points) per match. The remaining ‘strong’ were getting stronger and bearing down.
Blake Baker won nine racks in his match versus John Morra, who advanced to one of the semifinals. Blowers managed five in his match against Souto, who advanced to face Morra.
Georgi Georgiev allowed Raymond Linares only a single rack and advanced to the other semifinal. Sky Woodward gave up two to Stephen Holem and joined him.
With the field down to four, the sample size of the racks-against (2) has a way of making them relatively insignificant, although the average did go down to an exact 4 (the average of 6 and 2). It was Goergiev, losing his bid for a second straight Seattle Open title, who chalked up the six against Woodward, as Souto was busy restricting John Morra to his 2.
And the final race to 13 was on. Two hours and four minutes after the eventual double-hill match between Souto and Wooward began, it was over. Souto claimed title to the 2025 Seattle 9-Ball Open.
Tournament director Secret Wong thanked OX Billiards room owners Michael Dominguez and their staff for their hospitality, along with sponsors Litman Lights, Kamui, Clean Slate Billiards, Jess Magnus, Sandro Menzel, Cuetec and Brunswick. She also thanked Master of Ceremonies Ra Hanna, stream commentators Christian Youngers, Zak Ross & Shucheng Chao (along with various players) and referees Aaron and Renee Ross on Friday and Saturday and Aaron Ross and Sam Rabito on Sunday. The next stop on this Great Northwest calendar is a 650/330 and under 9-ball tournament, two tournaments on the same weekend (April 12-13) at the same location, Scratch Pizza & Billiards/15th St. Bar & Grill in Fife, WA.
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