Kristina Tkach
It was unbelievable and yet . . . it happened. Kristina Tkach and Margarita Fefilova-Styer played twice during this past weekend’s (Oct. 10-13) WPBA CueSpeed NAPA Invitational at Railyard Billiards in Louisville, KY. Hot seat and finals. Although the two had not faced each other at the last WPBA event, the Olhausen Colorado Classic (Sept. 26-29), which Styer had won and Tkach had finished in the tie for 9th, the two had ended that outing as the top two women in the WPBA’s rankings, Tkach ahead of Styer. Separated by a single, FargoRate point as they came into the event (Tkach on top, 733-732), expectations ran high as they approached each other from opposite ends of the bracket and won five straight to get into the hot seat match.
Tkach would lose the hot seat match and come back from the semifinals to win their final match, claiming title to the $15,000-added event that had drawn 64 entrants to Railyard Billiards. The ‘unbelievable’ would happen much later; three days and four hours later, to be precise, after they had stepped up to the tables for their opening matches.
Nothing in particular prepared either of them, or anybody who was watching (live or streamed), for the drama that unfolded. Tkach had gotten into the hot seat match on the strength of a five-match, aggregate game score of 40-9. Two shutouts, over Kaley Sullivan in the opening round and Emily Duddy in the third, helped. In between those two, she downed Tracy Cantrell (2), and after, defeated Pam Kelly (3), to draw Pia Filler in one of the winners’ side semifinals.
Styer, in the meantime, opened with two shutouts versus Tonya Wiser and Shanna Lewis, before allowing Kennedy Meyman and Janet Atwell to chalk up five against her. In her winners’ side semifinal, Styer drew Allison Fisher, who came into Louisville ranked third in the WPBA.
Tkach sent Filler off 8-4 to the loss side’s 5th/6th matches, as Styer dispatched Fisher to the same location 8-2. After which, the opening steps of the Anticipation Waltz got underway.
Though Styer got out to a commanding 6-1 lead in the race-to-8 hot seat match, doing so on the heels of a two and four-game run, Tkach kept inching forward, getting back into the game, winning the eighth and a break-and-run ninth rack (her first) to draw within three at 6-3.
Off her own break in game 10, Styer responded by eventually using a carom shot to drop the 9-ball and reach the hill first. Tkach responded with her second break-and-run to pull back within three, but Styer responded to that by chalking up her second break-and-run to claim the hot seat.
It should be noted that Saturday night’s (Oct. 12) matches concluded after the two winners’ side semifinals had put Allison Fisher and Pia Filler on the loss side and the matches determining 5th/6th had been played, advancing two to the quarterfinals. In effect, that Anticipation Waltz took an overnight break and resumed on Sunday with the hot seat match and quarterfinal commencing at noon.
On the loss side, in what proved to be the last Saturday night matches, Pia Filler had arrived to pick up Caroline Pao, who’d been shut out by Allison Fisher in a winners’ side quarterfinal and then defeated Ashley Rice 8-3 and Kristina Zlateva 8-6. Fisher drew Veronique Menard, who’d lost a second-round match to Pam Kelly 8-5 and set out on a six-match winning streak. In the last two matches of that streak, ahead of her match versus Fisher, Menard battled and defeated, double hill, both Monica Webb and Kaylee McIntosh.
Filler advanced to the quarterfinals 8-2 over Pao. Menard’s attempt to join her was frustrated in what proved to be her third double-hill fight with advancement to the quarterfinals on the line. Allison Fisher stopped her streak just before midnight on Saturday.
New dawn, new day. Presumably well rested, the Final Four Females took to the tables. As noted, Styer grabbed the hot seat, as Fisher and Filler went at it in the quarterfinals. Filler won it 8-3 and advanced to meet a very determined Kristina Tkach, 10 minutes later, in the semifinals.
One hour and 45 minutes later, Tkach had dropped the last semifinal 9-ball and earned her second shot at Styer. Two hours and 20 minutes after the conclusion of the hot seat match, the finals got underway.
On the surface, it would appear that the two+ hours between matches had interrupted Styer’s momentum, while the same two+ hours for Tkach had improved hers.
“I think this one is going to be a barnburner,” said Lonnie Fox-Raymond, commentating on the stream just after the final, race-to-10 match got underway, “but I don’t know. I don’t have a prediction on this one.”
“I think Kristinia wants to basically avenge her loss in the hot seat match,” said co-commentator, Ada Lio, “and it’s going to be a fight to the death.”
Raymond chuckled at that dramatic prediction, but coming out of the laugh, she said “But I promise you this, Margaret’s not going down without a fight.”
Oddly enough, Tkach, in the first break of the match, fouled in her attempt to fulfill the three-point rule, which assigns a point to any dropped balls and one point to each ball that travels past the head string; three points required for a legal break. She dropped one ball, but only one other ball, the 1-ball as it turned out, passed the head string and she immediately turned the table over to Styer.
In a harbinger of things to come, Styer stepped to the table, dropped the 1-ball and then, in an unforced error, missed a very makeable 2-ball. Kristina cleared the table to take the first of 10 straight games to claim the title.
The shutout aside, Raymond was right, in that Styer did not go down without a fight, but for every ‘punch’ she threw, Tkach had an answer, either ducking away from it or counterpunching. For every safety Styer tossed into her path, Tkach responded by putting Styer in an equally difficult position.
Tkach played smart, repeatedly refusing to take any ‘bait’ that Styer left on the table; tempting, but low percentage shots that with the game or match on the line, Tkach would have attempted, and likely made. Instead, employing the ‘safe’ choice that would invariably leave Styer in a bad position for any kind of response. It didn’t help that Styer made a critical unforced error in three out of the first four games, with Tkach chalking up her first ‘break and run’ in the midst of them, to take a 4-0 lead.
In rack 6, Styer completely missed a 2-ball that Tkach had maneuvered into an unreachable position, allowing Tkach to make it 6-0 and then, recording her second ‘break and run’ for a 7-0 lead. Another unforced error in rack 8 and a scratch by Styer shooting at the 1-ball in rack 9, eventually put Tkach on the hill.
Styer broke rack 10 and scratched. Tkach finished it. The mutual congratulations were cordial and in the booth, Lonnie Fox-Raymond reminded those who’d watched the match, that in the context of the entire tournament, “runner-up is no slouch.”
Tkach and Styer remained at the top of the WPBA rankings, with Allison Fisher (in attendance, watching the final) maintaining her position in third place.
WPBA representatives thanked the ownership and staff at Railyard Billiards for their hospitality (while indicating an intention to return to the site), along with sponsors (player/hostess) Michelle Griffin, Poolshooters.com, Billiard Life Apparel, CueSpeed, North American Poolshooters Association, Diamond Billiard Products, Simonis Cloth and Aramith Balls.
The next stop on the WPBA calendar, scheduled for the weekend of Nov. 21-24, will be the $15,000-added Capital City Invitational, to be hosted by Capital City Billiards in Concord, NH.
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