Lee Vann Corteza
Siekkinen and Alawadhi will face off in quarterfinals
Going into the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship quarterfinals (30 down, four to go), the point differential between player scores had not changed significantly over the course of the event’s two stages. The 125-56 average score of the Round Robin Stage 1 became a 125-57 score for all but the final three matches of the double-elimination Stage 2.
The $2k prize for the highest run was originally set by Mario He who ran 163 balls earlier in the week. He did better on Friday night when he ran to 170. On Saturday, Lee Vann Corteza came within two balls of surpassing him as he closed out a run of 169.
In winners’ side races to 150, Austria’s Mario He made his way to the hot seat match with wins over Bob Madenjian (11), Shaun Wilkie (35), and in a winners’ side semifinal, Bader Alwadhi (78). Vann Corteza’s path went through Matthias Arnold (41), Ralph Eckert (0) and in the other winners’ side semifinal, Mika Immonen (54). He and Vann Corteza were set to meet each other for the first time in a noon battle for the hot seat (Sun., Oct. 29)
On the loss side, Bader Alawadhi picked up Thorsten Hohmann, who’d lost a tight match to Jani Siekkinen in the opening round of Stage 1 (125-137), opened his loss side campaign with a shutout over Michael Yednak, and then downed countryman Ralf Souquet 125-49. He eliminated Finland’s Jani Uski 125-58. Immonen drew Siekkinen, who’d followed a loss to Alawadhi with victories over Mikael Ogaard 125-80 and the last American standing, Shaun Wilkie 125-64.
Alawadhi took command early of his match against Hohmann, eventually allowing him only 11 balls and advancing to the quarterfinals. In the battle of Finland, Siekkinen downed The Iceman in a much tighter match 125-90. The quarterfinals were scheduled to go off at noon, today as well.
The semifinals are set for 3 p.m. The finals will follow at a scheduled time of 7 p.m. All scheduled matches can be viewed on the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship’s FB page. Live scoring of Stage 2 matches can be viewed at any time at https://digitalpool.com/tournaments/2023-mens-division/viewer/stage-2 (from that vantage point, one can look at Stage 1 scores as well).
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