Malm and Townsend finish 1st & 2nd for third straight time in Women’s event
It’s been a good year for Reymart Lim; his best recorded earnings year since he started showing up on the AZBilliards’ database, four years ago. He began the year in February by finishing fourth in the 2017 VA State 10-Ball Championships, behind Dennis Orcollo, Shaun Wilkie and Larry Kressel. Since that time, he’s cashed in nine other events, including victories on the Viking Cues’ Q City 9-Ball Tour, and the North Carolina State 10-Ball Open. Only once, all year, has he been outside of an event’s top 10 finishers. The exception was the 42nd Annual US Open 9-Ball Championships, at which he finished in the tie for 25th. There were only seven US players among the Open’s top 25 finishers – Lim, Earl Strickland (also in the tie for 25th), Skyler Woodward, Justin Bergman, Shane Van Boening (all 13th), Billy Thorpe (9th), and Corey Deuel (7th).
Good company, to say the least. On the weekend of December 9-10, Lim added a victory on the Action Pool Tour to his resumé and had to win seven on the loss side to do it. He challenged and defeated hot seat occupant, Eric Moore in the finals. It was the APT’s season finale and it drew 35 entrants to Q Master Billiards in Virginia Beach, VA. A concurrently-run Women’s event drew a very short field of six entrants and saw Tina Malm and Gwen Townsend finish 1st & 2nd, respectively, for the third straight time on the tour.
In the women’s event, a preliminary, two-match round of play advanced Malm and Meredith Lynch to the winners’ side semifinals. Malm had defeated Soo Emmett 7-2 to draw Townsend. Lynch had sent Donisha Riddick to the loss side 7-1 and picked up Cheryl Pritchard. Malm and Townsend battled to double hill, before Townsend finished it to advance to the hot seat match. She was joined by Pritchard, who’d defeated Lynch 7-5. Townsend successfully fought a second double hill match and sat in the hot seat, awaiting Malm’s return from a three-match trip on the loss side.
On the loss side, Malm downed Riddick 7-2, advancing to meet Lynch, who’d defeated Emmett 7-1. Malm and Lynch came within a game of double hill, before Malm advanced to the semifinals 7-5. Malm then downed Pritchard 7-1 for a second shot at Townsend in the hot seat. The race was extended to 9, and Malm needed 16 of the match’s potential 17 games to close it out. She did so, 9-7, to chalk up her third straight victory on the tour (7th overall). It was also Townsend’s third straight finish as runner-up (to go along with a victory in May). The two finished 1st and 2nd in the tour’s rankings for the year.
In the Open event (in which Malm participated, as well, going two-and-out), Lim won his opening-round match against Brad Hedges 9-3, and was then sent to the loss side by Tuan Chau 9-6. Chau advanced to meet Eric Moore, who defeated him, double hill, and then advanced to a winners’ side semifinal against Kenny Miller. JT Ringgold, having defeated Mac Harrell, Michael Hughes, and Greg Sabins, advanced to meet Chris Wilburn, who entered (and finished) the tournament as the tour’s #2-ranked player (Shaun Wilkie, who did not compete, remained in the #1 slot).
Moore downed Miller 9-6, as Ringgold defeated Wilburn 9-3. Moore and Ringgold locked up in a double hill fight for possession of the hot seat and Moore claimed it.
On the loss side, Lim opened his trek back to the finals with victories over Jose Vega-Hernandez (7-1), Joshua Padron (7-2), Greg Sabins (7-2), and Mac Harrell (7-4), to draw Miller. Wilburn picked up the man who’d sent Lim to the loss side, Tuan Chau, who’d recently defeated Michael Hughes 7-2 and Nilbert Lim (no relation, though a friend, to Reymart) 7-4.
Chau defeated Wilburn, as Reymart Lim was busy eliminating Harrell, both 7-4. Lim wreaked his vengeance on Chau 7-2 in the quarterfinals, and went on to down Ringgold 7-5 in the semifinals. Lim took command of the finals, and finished it at 11-5 to claim the event title.
Tour director Ozzy Reynolds thanked the ownership and staff at Q Master Billiards for their hospitality and sponsorship, along with Cue Sports International, Predator, Ozone Billiards and George Hammerbach. The event, as the season finale, also ended the mega-battle for tour rankings in the male and Open divisions. Leading the way in the Open Division was Shaun Wilkie, who earned airfare, hotel and entry fee to the 2018 US Open 10-Ball Championships. Chris Wilburn, who finished second, earned hotel and entry fee to the same event.
Tina Malm, who finished at the top of the women’s rankings, received hotel accommodations and entry fee to the 2018 BCAPL World Championships in July. Unless a female finishes at the top of the tour’s Open rankings, Malm became the APT’s last separate female tour champion, because the APT will no longer offer separate tournaments for a female division of the tour.
