Mika Immonen and Ernie Arcaro
Eddie Abraham spent some time on Sunday, February 21, looking into his tournament rear view mirror. He'd knocked two-time US Open champion, Mika “The Iceman” Immonen, to the one-loss side from among the winners' side final eight in a hill-hill contest. Two matches later, Abraham began glancing into that mirror from the hot seat, as Immonen completed a five-match journey back to the finals, winning those five matches by an average score of 7-2 (2.4, to be precise). Immonen gave up only 12 games out of the 47 played over those five matches.
Abraham put up a fight in the true double elimination finals of this $1,000-added second stop on the inaugural Mezz Pro Am Tour, which had drawn 50 entrants to Atlantic City Billiards in Egg Harbor, NJ. Immonen, though, won 14 of the 23 games they played over two sets to be the first outright winner on the tour. On January 31, bragging rights as the first winner of this new tour were shared by Ignacio Chavez and Joey Testa, who chose not to play a final match (or two), and split the first and second place winnings.
With Immonen out of the way, at least temporarily, Abraham turned his attention to Testa, defeating him 7-5 to move into the hot seat match against Victor Nau, who'd defeated perennial Northeast women's favorite Liz Ford in a double hill battle. Abraham moved into the hot seat with a 7-3 win over Nau and turned his attention full-time to that rearview mirror.
Immonen's first stop on the one-loss side was a 7-2 victory over Matt Douglas, followed by a 7-3 win over Joe Frady, which set him up to meet Testa. He was joined by Phil Wines, who'd defeated Matt Krah 7-1, and Rob Pole 7-6 to pick up Ford. Immonen and Wines gave up only a single game between them to reach the quarterfinals; Wines shut out Ford and Immonen gave up the one game to Testa.
Immonen moved back to the finals with 7-3 victories over both Wines in the quarterfinals and Nau in the semifinals, at which point, Abraham's eyes shifted from the rearview mirror to the true double elimination road ahead of him. Immonen had won about three of every four games he'd played since Abraham had sent him to the one-loss side, and though Abraham knocked that average from its 75% perch down to 60% over the course of the two set finals, Immonen prevailed 7-5, 7-4 to take home the first place prize.
Stop # 3 on this Mezz Pro Am Tour, being sponsored by Mezz Cues (Immonen and WPBA Pro Caroline Pao are partners in the Mezz Cues affiliate, Mezz Cues USA), will be held on March 7 at the Main Line Billiards Club in Frazier, PA. For a complete schedule, log on to the tour Web site at www.mezztour.com.
