Jas Makhani
Janet Atwell to host Farewell to Borderline Billiards event at the venue this weekend
Over the past few years, junior competitors have achieved a level of recognition and in some cases, respect that was previously unheard of. While the ‘flagship’ of junior pool – the annual Billiards Education Foundation’s Junior National Championships and its international counterpart, the World Junior Championships – has received its fair share of respectable notice and coverage, Ra Hanna’s Junior International Championship (JIC) series of events got underway in 2021, at which point, the presence of juniors playing against themselves and against adults in regional competition began a remarkable expansion.
It’s an odd dateline that separates the before and after of this expansion, but pre-COVID, the pool community might have been aware of junior competitors like Skyler Woodward, Billy Thorpe and April Larson, et al, but generally, only after they’d begun competing against adults in regional tours and beyond. Now, the younger competitors are becoming known as they continue to compete at the junior level and while they’re extending their competitive reach into adult competition. Raleigh, NC’s Shane Wolford comes to mind as a junior competitor, pre-COVID, who made something of a quantum leap from junior competition to becoming a member of the 2023 Mosconi Cup Team. But beyond Wolford, there are a number of still-junior competitors known to a wide range of folks in the pool community, as they’ve moved from junior competition into regional tours and beyond.
Young women, in particular, are ‘making (unprecedented) noise’ in the professional pool community. Names like Savanna Easton, Sofia Mast, Skylar Hess and the Tate sisters, Bethany and Noelle, who compete, by regular invitation, on the Women’s Professional Billiards Association Tour, are becoming ‘household names’ among members of the larger pool community that pays attention. And Bethany Tate, at 18 (in a week), is the oldest member of that group.
The ’household name’ category for young men now includes the likes of Landon Hollingsworth, Joey Tate, Brent Worth, Niko Konkel and Nathan Childress, to name just a few. Another name on that list (if not before, possibly now) is 14-year-old Jas Makhani, who just went undefeated to win a stop on the PremierBilliards.com’s Q City 9-Ball Tour this past weekend (Jan. 20-21). Makhani competed throughout 2023 in the Junior International Championship series, winning its fifth stop and in July, won his first stop on the Q City 9-Ball Tour. This most recent event was his second win on the tour in the last six months.
Adding an important-to-him ‘feather in his cap,’ Makhani had to defeat 18-year-old fellow JIC competitor, Joey Tate, to complete the task. It should be noted that Bethany and Noelle Tate competed as well. The $500-added event this past weekend drew 39 entrants to Breaktime Billiards in Cary, NC; not Breaktime Billiards in Winston-Salem, which is owned by Jas Makhani’s father, Sundeep Makhani.
“Of all the junior players to have ever played in my tournaments – Shane Wolford, Landon Hollingsworth, Nathan Childress and Justin Martin (who was a junior when he competed),” said Q City 9-Ball Tour Director, Herman Parker, “Jas is the youngest, at 14, to ever achieve a level ‘8’ on my tour. This was the third time in a row that he’s cashed on the tour and he became an ‘8’ as a result.”
“It was the first time that he’d ever beaten Joey Tate,” he added, “and he did it twice.”
Rated at ‘7’ going into the event, Makhani was giving up (handicap) racks to his opponents until he reached the winners’ side semifinal, and no one chalked up more racks against him than three until he got there. He got by Kaitlyn Giddens (2), Andy Spencer (3) and Lionell Swantson (3) to draw Wilson Dorsey (last week’s winner on the Q City 9-Ball Tour) in that winners’ side semifinal. Joey Tate, in the meantime, racing to 9 throughout, sent Steve Page (6), Jason Rogers (6) and Tristan Kotke (1) to the loss side to pick up Justin Mawyin in the other winners’ side semifinal.
The parallel lines of Makhani and Tate met in the ‘infinity’ of the hot seat match. Makhani downed Dorsey, who was racing to 8, 7-4, as Tate sent Mawyin over 9-5. Makhani began the hot seat match (and finals) with two ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 9. He took the first of his two versus Tate 7-7 and claimed the hot seat.
On the loss side, Dorsey picked up Steve Page (also racing to 8), who’d followed his loss to Tate with six in a loss-side row, to include two straight, double-hill wins that had recently eliminated Kelly Farrar and Thomas Sansone. Mawyin drew Pam Perry, who’d lost her second match to Farrar and was working on her own four-match, loss-side winning streak that had recently sent Russell Stalls (double hill) and Jason Rogers home (4-3, Rogers racing to 8).
Mawyin defeated Perry 7-2 and was joined in the quarterfinals by Page, who’d battled to double hill and defeated Dorsey. Page got by Mawyin 8-3 to earn a rematch against Tate in the semifinals.
Tate and Page battled to double hill in those semifinals, before Tate won it to earn his own rematch against Makhani in the finals. Still racing to 7 (for, as it turned out, the last time) Makhani didn’t need the two ‘beads on the wire.’ He downed Tate in the only set necessary 7-6 and claimed his second Q City 9-Ball title.
Tour director Herman Parker thanked Sara and Tony Figueroa and their Breaktime Billiards staff for their hospitality, along with title sponsor PremierBilliards.com, BarPoolTables.net (Randy Tate), TKO Custom Cues and Realty One Group results (Kirk Overcash), Dirty South Grind Apparel (Angela Harlan-Parker), Federal Savings Bank (Alex Narod), CHC Underground (Chris Clary) and AZBilliards.
This coming weekend’s stop on the PremierBilliards.com’s Q City 9-Ball Tour (Jan. 27-28) will be marking a milestone for Janet Atwell and her Borderline Billiards venue in Bristol, TN. It will be the last event held at that venue as Atwell shifts to a nearby location and the opening of a Brunswick Arena, sometime in March. Further details will follow as they become available.
“We’re hoping to get as many competitors out there this weekend as we can to celebrate a Farewell to Borderline Billiards and lay out a welcome mat for her new location,” said Parker. “She’s moving to a bigger and better room, immediately, three or four doors down, that’ll feature Gold Crown Brunswick tables.”
Parker also announced two upcoming Open events on his PremierBilliards.com’s TOP (The Open Player) Tour, one of which will represent another ‘Farewell’ appearance. The TOP Tour’s Winter Classic is the first of the two. Scheduled for the weekend of Feb. 3-4, the $1,000-added event will be hosted by Dot’s Cue Club in Rocky Mount, NC.
The next TOP Tour event, scheduled for the weekend of Feb. 17-18, will be hosted by Breaktime Billiards in Winston-Salem, NC and, as with the Farewell to Borderline Billiards, will be the last time that either the Q City 9-Ball or TOP Tour will appear in that location. The new location is slated to be in operation within the next three months. Again, further information to be disseminated as it becomes available.
“It’ll be our last event at that location, too, because Breaktime Billiards’ owner, Sundeep Makhani, has bought a building in nearby Clemmons, NC (11 mile, SE of Breaktime Billiards),” said Parker. “It’s going to be a bigger and better venue.”
“It’ll feature 42 tables, including a three-cushion and snooker table,” Parker added. “It’s going to have bleachers and, following conversations with Matchroom Sports, will be hosting major events.”
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