Tony Robles and the Blatt Billiards Predator 9-ball Tour held their first "ABCD" tournament of the season this past weekend at Mr. Cue's Billiards in Lindenhurst, NY. The tour's 3rd $1,000-added stop welcomed a total of 80 of its players to this new pool room on the tour's schedule, and they created a significant buzz within the pool room.
The main tournament drew a full field of 64 players, which comprised a perfect mix of 32 C's and D's and 32 B's and A's. This two-day event brought many of the Tri-State area's strongest up-and-coming men and women players trying to climb the Predator Tour points standings.
After day one came to an end, the buzz was all about the impressive play of emerging players Justin Muller, Marco Dy, Borana Andoni, and Lionel Rivera who were impressive in staying in full control as they remained undefeated.
There was also a solid showing from local Long Island players, including Beau Bear, James Swanson, Frankie Cologne, Joe Hunter, Erin McManus, Dennis Lake, and John Mazes, who brought their A-game. Even though Borana Andoni was the highest finishing female, Erin McManus was awarded $100 for the runner-up Delta-13 highest finishing female due to the fact that Borana had a strong 9-12th place finish.
As play unfolded on Sunday, the story was all about players who showed a no-quit attitude on the table, and the final match-up was surely not easily predicted.
Emerging player Thomas Wan lost his first match, but quietly won 8 consecutive matches before losing a come-from-behind set to none other than the Predator Tour Tournament Director, William Finnegan. Finnegan had a stand-out performance and surely surprised a few people, as he bounced back from a hill-hill loss to Erin McManus before winning 9 consecutive matches in a row to land his spot in the finals.
In the Finals, Finnegan met up with Marco Dy, who also had a breakthrough tournament earning an undefeated spot in the finals after squeaking through a hard-fought hill-hill set with Lionel Rivera. Lionel was then taken out in the semi-finals by Finnegan in another dramatic hill-hill battle, with Finnegan making the 9 on the break to win the match.
The final set saw Finnegan start out strong to build a 7-2 lead in the race to 9 games, looking very dominant. In a surprising turn of events, Marco grinded back to tie the score at 8-8 putting himself in another gut check hill-hill situation.
Finnegan had the break and successfully pocketed a ball and had an open table for a chance to earn the title and the personal victory of having gone through 10 consecutive players... Uncharacteristically, he missed an easy 2-ball to the crowd's surprise, giving Marco the easy run out and his 1st Predator Tour victory. Congratulations to both Marco and Finnegan, who showed true performances of heart.
The Predator Tour also hosted a second day B-C-D event, which brought out 16 players to compete on Sunday afternoon. Dave Manasseri and Bob Mammarella fought through this field to make it to the finals, but it was Dave Manasseri who would come out on top in the finals with a dominant 7-2 win over Mammarella.
Stop # 4 will be taking place April 11-12 at Cuebar in Bayside, Queens. This will be an Open/Pro-Am event. Please visit www.predator9balltour.com to see the complete schedule.
