Nick Charette and Ron Casanzio
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour kicked off the second half of it’s 2022/2023 season with a field of 51 players competing at the Northeast 9-Ball Open XXXIV at Sharpshooters Billiards and Sports Pub in Amsterdam, NY on February 18th – 19th.
The field included four of the top five players on the tour’s points list, with only 4th place Nate Marshall missing. Even with that firepower in the event, it was Canada’s Nick Charette who advanced through the field undefeated to score his first career Joss NE 9-Ball Tour title.
Charette made it clear that he meant business this weekend with his first three match wins (Brian Namulik, Aro Majumder and Ed Culhane) coming with a combined score of 27-3. He was tested in his next two, but still scored comfortable wins over Jordan Turner and #3 on the points list, Bucky Souvanthong.
Charette really made a statement on Sunday with a 9-0 whitewash over Dan Sharlow for the hot-seat.
On the one loss side, Ron Casanzio was showing everyone why he is the #1 player on the points list this season. After dropping a hill-hill match against Geoff Montgomery on Saturday, Casanzio strung together nine straight wins on the left side of the board to earn his shot at Charette in the finals.
While on paper, most would have considered Casanzio a big favorite, simply based on his experience in Joss Tour finals, Charette was not to be denied as the cruised to a 9-6 win in the first and only set of the finals.
Sunday’s second chance tournament saw Rohit Aggarwal hold off a charge from Joe Wysocki to win the second set of the finals 3-1 for first place. Wysocki lost to Mike Renshaw in the final four on the winners side, but won four straight, including a 3-2 decision against Aggarwal in the first set of the finals. It wasn’t enough though, with Aggarwal following up his hot-seat win over Renshaw with a second set in against Wysocki and first place.
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