Jasmin Ouschan
There are pivot points in every pool tournament, moments that have a way of changing a tournament’s trajectory from where it looked like it was going, to going somewhere else. Pretty much every one of a tournament’s last 14 matches are pivotal because in many cases, they define the payment parameters. Win, lose or draw, the final 12 competitors in most large-entrant tournaments are usually going home with cash.
This past long weekend (Dec. 6-10), the $30,000-added, Women’s Professional Billiards Association’s Dr. Pool Tour Championships, drew 77 entrants to the Central Wisconsin Expo Center in Rothschild, WI. On Wednesday, 45 of those entrants, unseeded in the event, began a two-day, double-elimination Stage 1. By Friday morning, 16 of those 45, eight from each side of the Stage 1 bracket, joined 32 seeded players in a Stage 2, double-elimination bracket, with 16 of the original 32 seeded players receiving opening-round byes. Both the Stage 1 and Stage 2 brackets featured a number of ‘pivot points’ that occurred well before the number of entrants in the Stage 2 bracket had dwindled down to its assured cash-payment level for 24 of them.
Among the more significant pivot points in the Stage 1 bracket were a few of the matches that advanced players to Stage 2. From the winners’ side of that bracket, April Larson advanced to Stage 2 with a victory over JPNEWT tour director, Briana Miller and Michel Monk advanced by defeating Kim Cuarisma. From the loss side, Miller had one opportunity to advance and took advantage of it, defeating Janet Ritcey, while Krystal DePelsMaeker (the APA’s 2023 Women’s Amateur Champion) won three on the loss side, including a victory over Shanna Lewis that advanced her. Of the four involved in those pivotal, Stage 1 victories, all but one of them finished in the money. DePelsmaeker missed joining them at the cash window when she finished in the tie for 25th. Miller and Larson were not through with their contributions to the event’s pivot points.
The very first Stage 2 pivot point came about when the eventual winner, #2 seed Jasmin Ouschan, who was awarded an opening round bye, lost her first match to Portugal’s Sara Rocha, double hill. And there went the tournament’s #2 seed, temporarily at least. Good news for the three women she might have faced on the winners’ side in an attempt to claim the hot seat. Bad news for the nine women on the loss side that preceded her victory over the event’s defending champion, #3-seeded Taipei’s Tzu-Chien Wei in the final.
Another pivot point in the same Stage 2 winners’ side round saw the unseeded Briana Miller, playing in her second straight, pivot-point match, defeat the tournament’s #1 seed, Kelly Fisher, who came into and left the event as the WPBA’s top-ranked 2023 competitor. Same good news/bad news ‘pivot point’ result. The winners’ side quarterfinals featured a match between the event’s #4 and #5 seed, Allison Fisher and Margarita Fefilova. That was destined to be pivotal, no matter how it turned out. In a double hill battle, Fefilova sent Allison to the loss side.
And then there was the winners’ side quarterfinal, double ‘pivot point’ match between Tzu-Chien Wei and unseeded April Larson. Pivotal for both of them and double-pivotal in the final double-hill game of the match. Wei prevailed, Larson moved west as Wei advanced to a winners’ side semifinal.
Wei, after a bye, had defeated Kia Burwell and JoAnn Mason Parker before she defeated April Larson and downed Brittany Bryant 8-3 in the winners’ side semifinal afterwards. Kaylee McIntosh, seeded at #8, had her share of personal pivot points as she survived an opening-round, double-hill match against Lonnie Fox-Raymond, then downed the former #1 US female on the WPBA tour, Caroline Pao (a distinction that McIntosh now holds) and defeated Briana Miller in a winners’ side quarterfinal. McIntosh got into the hot seat match with an 8-6 win over Fefilova in the other winners’ side semifinal.
The hot seat match went back and forth for six of its potential 15 games. Tied at 3-3 (an individual, in-match pivot point), Wei won the next five to claim the seat and send McIntosh off to the semifinals, as she settled in to allow Ouschan time to complete her loss-side run.
On the loss side, with more than its normal share of pivotal matchups, Bryant and Fefilova arrived to meet up with Allison Fisher and Ouschan, respectively. Ouschan was six matches into her loss-side run and just prior to meeting up with Fefilova, had eliminated Pao (1), Larson (3) and shut out Pam Kelly. Allison’s first opponent, after her loss to Fefilova, was Kelly Fisher, who was working on her own four-match, loss-side winning streak that had recently eliminated Sara Rocha (2) and Janet Atwell (1), thus creating this tournament’s ‘mother’ of pivot points in the battle between the Fishers.
Allison drops 9-ball on the break in opening rack of pivotal ‘two Fisher’ match versus Kelly
Things looked good for Allison, right from the proverbial get-go, as she dropped the 9-ball on the opening break and added two more racks for an early 3-0 lead. Kelly got on the board and then added another rack, off Allison’s break. Allison came back to make it 4-2, Kelly long-banked the 9-ball in the next game to make it 4-3 and then tied it up at 4-4. Kelly scratched shooting at the 1-ball in the next rack and Allison finished it, taking the lead at 5-4 and adding another for a two-rack lead. Allison scratched breaking the 11th rack, which eventually launched the match’s longest safety battle. Allison ended up winning the rack, reaching the hill and finishing things at 8-4 to draw and then defeat Kristina Zlateva (5). She picked up Bryant, coming over from the winners’ side.
Allison got into the quarterfinals with an 8-3 win over Bryant, while Ouschan was chalking up loss-side win #7, 8-4 over Fefilova, to join her. Ouschan gave up three racks to Allison in those quarterfinals. McIntosh got two more than that against her in the semifinals, but Ouschan advanced to the finals already in possession of the event’s most-matches-played title with (at the time) 10.
In a final race to 10, she made it an official ‘Ouschan’s 11’ total matches. She and Tzu-Chien Wei traded racks back and forth in the final to a 3-3 tie, Wei having taken the lead twice (at 1-0, and 3-2). Ouschan took the lead at 2-1 and her second at 4-3. She added another, making it 5-3 before Wei chalked up her 4th and what would prove to be her last rack.
With Ouschan on the hill at 9-4, Wei got an early-rack possibility to win a fifth, when Ouschan attempted a shot at the 1-ball that rattled in a corner pocket and stayed in the teeth of the hole as the cue ball settled in about two clear feet away. Wei stepped to the table and with (likely) visions of a comeback on pretty much everyone’s mind, she tried to hit the rail first and missed the 1-ball entirely. Ouschan connected the dots on the open table and claimed the Dr. Pool Tour Championship title.
(From a WPBA Facebook post) “A heartfelt thank you to our incredible WPBA sponsors! Guy McElroy and Chad Simone of Jacoby Custom Cues, Todd Holzer of On The Hill Sports Bar, Dale Elliot of the host venue and Dean Roeseler of DR Pool Promotions Inc.
As well as our other major sponsors. Special mentions to The City of Rothschild, Aramith – Billiard Balls, Iwan Simonis Billiards, and Diamond Billiards Products. Your support was pivotal in making our event a phenomenal success! Looking forward to a successful 2024! #Grateful #WPBASponsors #billiards #9ballpool”
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