The heat was on at the Predator 9-Ball Tour's 9th stop of the season, as 42 of the tour's players came out to compete for the first time at Paradise Billiards in Sunnyside, Queens.
One of the highlight players in this event was house pro Al Zea, who attended his first Predator event on this weekend. Zea suffered a first round loss to Tony Robles (8-5), but came back on a determined hot streak through the one-loss side to finish in fourth place.
Some of the other top competitors attending this event include Marc Vidal, Jorge Rodriguez, Tony Robles, "Alaska" Sean Morgan, Mhet Vergara, "Ginky" George San Souci, Zion Zvi, Oscar Bonilla, and Jerry Tarantola.
Five of the tour's ladies also came out to show what they're made of, including Gail Glazebrook, Olga Gashkova, Alison Fischer, Diana Rojas, and Erin McManus, who claimed the award for the highest finishing C/D player, winning $100.
In this event, the winner's bracket was dominated by Tony Robles, Marc Vidal, Jerry Tarantola, and Oscar Bonilla. Robles & Vidal faced off in a match that Robles would dominate by a score of 8-3. On the other side of the bracket, Tarantola trailed Bonilla by 4-1, but came back with a vengeance to win 8-5.
For the hot seat, Tony Robles and Jerry Tarantola met up in a one-sided match that Tony would mop up by a score of 8-1, sending Jerry to the one-loss side. Tony was tapped into the zone in this match, and took advantage of Jerry's errors--ending his winning streak, having not let previous opponents aside from Bonilla get past 3 games.
On the one-loss side, we saw a number of dramatic matches the between some of the toughest players. "Alaska" Sean Morgan would win a testing 8-6 match to eliminate George San Souci only to fall in the next round to house pro Al Zea, who had a strong performance, stepping out to lead 4-1. Alaska would return with two more games, but Al played lights-out, hardly missing a ball to win 8-3.
Al would then match up with Marc Vidal, returning from his winner's side loss to Tony Robles. It looked like Vidal was falling victim to fatigue even early in this match, falling short on his safeties, risking giving the momentum to Zea. However, the battle stayed neck and neck. With the match locked at 5 games, Zea made a 1-9 carom to take the lead. In the following game, Vidal played a strong safety, but Zea returned with a strong kick shot on the one ball, and ran out. Zea then broke and ran out an impressive final rack to win the set 8-5.
On the other side of the bracket, Oscar Bonilla faced off against Danny Caliente. In this match, Bonilla was too much for Caliente to handle, with Bonilla jumping out to a 5-0 lead, to finish with an 8-3 win. This set up a match between Bonilla and Al Zea in the Quarter-Finals. Zea initially continued his strong play, but the late hour was taking its toll as he made some errors, which Bonilla capitalized on, Bonilla finishing on top 8-5.
Bonilla moved on to play Jerry Tarantola in the Semi-Finals. This match played out much differently than their earlier set, with Bonilla easily winning by a score of 8-2, landing him in the finals against tour owner, Tony Robles.
The final match lined up Oscar Bonilla to play tour owner Tony Robles, who went through the tournament undefeated. The match would land at hill-hill, but Bonilla would make a fatal error as he scratched on the 7-ball to allow Robles to take the match and the tournament, making this Robles' 2nd consecutive Father's Day weekend win.
The Predator Tour would like to thank all its players who came out to this event, as well as the tour's sponsors: Blatt Billiards, Delta 13 Racks and The Seminole Tribe of Florida. Congratulations to Tony Robles for a dominating performance at Paradise Billiards.
