Chad Bazinet, Mike Zhu, Steve Sutton and Amazon Billiards Manager Beau Powers
Mike Zhu got off to a slow start at the Massachusetts State 9-Ball Champion, held as part of the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour at Amazin Billiards in Boston on May 20th – 21st, but once he got things going, he was impossible to beat.
Zhu got his event started with a one-sided 9-2 win over Luca Bares, but then things took a poor turn for him. After a hill-hill loss to Jay Aliomer, Zhu found himself on the one loss side and tied hill-hill with Dev Bhattacharya. Zhu got himself out of that jam, and won the match hill-hill, before taking off on an undefeated run through the left side of the board.
Zhu won three matches on Saturday with wins over John Morlock, Rich Howard and Craig Boaman. He then kicked off his Sunday with back to back 7-5 wins over Dan Sharlow and Francisco Cabral, before a 7-0 drubbing of Alex Gurevich.
Back on the right side of the board, Chad Bazinet was beating Steve Sutton for the hot-seat 9-4.
Zhu went on to defeat Cleiton Rocha 7-4 and then Sutton 7-5 to earn his place in the finals against Bazinet.
After his nine match winning streak on the one loss side, two more matches were no big deal for Zhu, as he defeated Bazinet 9-8 and 7-4 for the win and his first Joss NE 9-Ball Tour title.
Beau Power’s path to the win in Sunday’s second chance tournament was a much shorter one, as he ran through four matches undefeated to score the win over Bill Gallager in the finals 3-2.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will finish off their regular season on June 3rd – 4th at Snookers in Providence, RI.
0 comments