Shawn Putnam has completed an undefeated run to win the North American Open Tour Stop at The Hilton in Pittsburgh.
Putnam surprised many of the fans at this event with wins over such powerhouses as Charlie Bryant, Rodney Morris, Jeremy Jones and Santos Sambajon in this event. Putnan jokingly referred to this event as 'Revenge Tournament' where he had vowed to exact revenge on all of the players who had defeated him in past tournaments. True to his word, Putnam took them all down on his way to the finals against Williams.
Putnam admitted prior to the match with Williams that Williams could not be part of the 'Revenge' theme since they had not played in the past. "That's ok. He is going to have to beat me, since I am not going to beat myself. I am too confident now." said Putnam before the match got underway.
Putnam raced out to a 10-4 lead over Williams but was grounded in his chair while Williams won three games to get back to 10-7. "I thought he was going to come back on me, but I just sat in the chair and waited for my chance. When I got the chance, I took advantage of it and won. It was all about keeping my composure and not letting any negative thoughts creep into my head while Charlie was winning racks." said Putnam.
Tournament organizer Jim Dawson thanked the fans, players and the UPA for coming out and making the tournament a success. Dawson also wished a special thanks to Carol Whiteside who helped out by driving fans and players from the local pool room to the Hilton for the event.
We have complete brackets from the event online as well as two photo galleries from Diana Hoppe. Photo gallery 1 and 2.
Complete Results:
1st Shawn Putnam $6000
2nd Charlie Williams $3000
3rd Tony Robles $2500
4th Mike Davis $2000
5th/6th Johnny Archer, Santos Sambajon $1500
7th/8th Jeremy Jones, Corey Deuel $1150
9th/12th Thorsten Hohmann, Max Eberle, Danny Basavich, Niels Feijen $850
13th/16th Gabe Owen, Robb Saez, Jeff White, Rodney Morris $570
17th/24th Brandon Ashcraft, Evan Broxmeyer, Tony Crosby, Brian Mahan, Charles Blank, Luc Salvas, Frank Alvarez, Troy Frank $250
Photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics By Hoppe