The Predator 9-Ball Tour made it's debut in Stamford, Connecticut this past weekend as Rack N' Roll Billiards played host to stop #10. A very strong field of 51 players came out to support.
Top players included, newly crowned 2008 BCA Generationpool.com women's champion Xiao-Ting Pan, WPBA #2 ranked Ga-Young Kim, Mika Immonen, Marc Vidal, Shin Park, Mike Fingers, Bobby Blackmore, Victor Nau, Jeremy Sossei, Chuck Altomare, Steve Lillis, Ray McNamara and the great Earl Herring.
After losing her third match to Victor Nau, Ga Young Kim won her next two matches on the one loss side before losing a hill-hill match to reigning Ocean State Champion Jeremy Sossei. Xiaoting Pan won her first three matches before losing to Robles 9-3 and would end with a 9th-12th finish.
Marc Vidal was having his way on the winner's side until he lost a heart breaker to Mika Immonen 9-8. Meanwhile, Mike Fingers was tearing them up on the top side of the winner's bracket including a win over Shin Park 9-4. Mike had a few missed opportunities against Tony Robles which cost him the match 9-6.
This set up the match between Tony and Mika for the hot seat. It was all Mika as he played a near flawless match to earn the win 9-3 sending Robles to the left side of the chart. Meanwhile, Shin Park knocked Marc Vidal out of the tournament 9-3 and got revenge against Mike Fingers to earn a spot in the semifinal against Robles.
This was Tony's chance to break the Shin Park curse. (Tony had a 0-9 record against Shin going into this match.) A determined Tony capitalized on a few mistakes by Park and took the win 9-5 to set up the final with Mika.
In the final, both players started out strong but Tony lucked in three balls in one rack with the match tied 4-4 and again another ball in the next rack. That's all it took to close the deal on Immonen as Robles finished out the following rack to take the 7-5 win.
Stop #11 will be taking place next week at Park Slope Billiards in Brooklyn, NY. Please visit www.predator9balltour for more information, payouts and standings.
