Aloysius Yapp and Pat Fleming
In the midst of many contenders for the International Open 9-Ball title at this past week’s 2023 International Open, Aloysius Yapp’s victory wasn’t unexpected, though it was certainly not among the outcomes that any number of prognosticators expected from the $50,000-added event that drew 128 entrants to the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel in Norfolk, VA. Among the event’s last four winners were in the house – Jayson Shaw (’19, ’22), Albin Ouschan (’21) and Chang Yung-Lin (’18) – not to mention a long, long list of other worthy candidates in the 128-entrant field. Fedor Gorst was there, along with Joshua Filler, Shane Van Boening, and a number of BCA Hall of Fame competitors like Thorsten Hohmann, Ralf Souquet, Earl Strickland and this past week’s most recent inductee, Neils Feijen (Feijen was inducted at a ceremonial banquet during the event). In the midst of so many contenders for the title and perhaps because not as many were aware that a week earlier, at the inaugural Battle of the Bull in Roanoke, VA, Yapp had defeated (among others) Gorst, Van Boening, Skyler Woodward and Roberto Gomez, his name just did not come immediately to mind.
It should have and certainly should in the future. When combined with his performance in the Diamond Big Foot 10-Ball Challenge, which took place from Mon. Oct. 30 through Wed., Nov. 3, Yapp played 12 matches (three in the Big Foot Challenge) and won 10 of them. He defeated Roland Garcia and Fedor Gorst in his first two matches of the Big Foot Challenge before losing to the eventual winner, Shane Van Boening to finish 4th. In the 128-entrant 9-Ball Open, he missed advancement to the single-elimination Stage 2 by one double-hill match. He won three in Stage 1 before he lost his second (and last) match to the event’s 2021 winner, Albin Ouschan. Yapp played a single match on the loss side, eliminating Ralf Souquet 10-2 and advanced from the loss side to Stage 2.
Like Yapp, Spain’s David Alcaide wasn’t picking up a lot of love in the early, pick-the-winner department. He didn’t compete in the Big Foot Challenge and won seven of the eight matches he played in the 9-Ball Open. Unlike Yapp, Alcaide advanced to Stage 2 of the event from the winners’ side of the bracket, although not before being challenged twice in double-hill matches. After defeating Brandon Shuff and Saudi Arabia’s Khalid Alghamdi, Alcaide faced fellow countryman Jose Alberto Delgado in the first of his two straight double-hill battles. He advanced to and eventually beyond his second against the Philippine’s Roland Garcia. Alcaide joined Jayson Shaw in advancing from one of the four, 32-player segments of the bigger bracket.
Stage 2 began mid-day on Friday, Nov. 3 and was over just after 11 p.m. on Saturday night. Friday’s matches were interrupted for a couple of hours to accommodate the BCA Hall of Fame Banquet that inducted Neils Feijen into the Hall of Fame.
Yapp opened up against the runner-up in the previous week’s American 14.1 Straight Pool Championships, Lee Vann Corteza. Yapp downed Vann Corteza 10-6 and in a proverbial, out-of-the-frying-pan, into-the-fire kind of way, drew Fedor Gorst in one of the quarterfinals. Alcaide, in the meantime, knew he hadn’t dropped into a picnic when he drew Van Boening in his opening round. He managed to navigate those tricky waters 10-6 and sail into a quarterfinal against Japan’s Naoyuki Oi. Mario He faced Wiktor Zielinski, as The Lion (Alex Pagulayan) squared off against Peru’s Gerson Martinez in the other two quarterfinals.
Yapp downed Gorst 10-8 and in the semifinals, drew Zielinski, who’d eliminated He 10-6. Alcaide advanced to the semifinals over Oi 10-5 and was joined by Martinez, who defeated the ever-entertaining Lion 10-8.
Yapp and Zielinski got caught up in a bit of a nail-biter semifinal, which went back and forth with a series of mini-runs (both managed three racks in a row, once) that eventually tied the score at 8-8. With a hill-hill tie still on the table, Yapp made a good-news, bad-news jump shot at the 2-ball in rack 17. The ball went down, but so did the cue ball. Zielinski failed to capitalize and Yapp was on the hill. Yapp advanced to the finals off of Zielinski’s break 10-8.
Alcaide and Martinez were tied after two racks, but when Alcaide took the lead with three in a row, Martinez was never able to get closer than one. That happened at 5-4, at which point, Alcaide chalked up five in a row to reach the hill. Martinez got a round of applause when he won his fifth rack, but Alcaide shut him down and advanced to the final against Yapp.
A shaky start to the finals, before Yapp pulls away to win it by five
There is a palpable tension in the air when an event like the International Open gets to its last match. Of course, the players have a way of ignoring it.
“Every round is a challenge,” Yapp would say later. “I have to stay focused on my game. It’s part of the game.”
Spectators, on the other hand, come into the arena and settle into their seats, longing for a dramatic showdown, preferably ending with a double-hill, deciding game at the end. Their hopes on this Saturday night took something of an immediate nosedive when Alcaide won the lag, broke dry and scratched.
Predictably, Yapp took the opening game of the race to 13, but Alcaide came back in the second to jump a ball that cross-banked into a side pocket and tied things up immediately. He followed that with a ‘break and run’ that put him in front 2-1 and smoothed some spectator concerns. For a while. They didn’t know that Alcaide had just taken his last lead.
Yapp broke the fourth rack (almost dropping the 9-ball). An unforced error turned the table over to Alcaide, who promptly scratched (again), allowing Yapp to run the rack and knot things at 2-2. Yapp went up 3-2, then broke and scratched, allowing Alcaide to tie it up at 3-3. Spectators might have been forgiven at this point for wondering whether they’d dropped into a league night at their local pool hall.
A ball-in-hand opportunity gave Yapp rack #7. He dropped the 9-ball when he broke rack #8. Alcaide broke and ran rack #9, before Yapp dropped the 9-ball on the break (again) to go up by two (6-4).
“This,” you could almost hear the spectators say in unison, “is more like it.”
Yapp won the next five in a row, including his first ‘break and run’ (not including his two ‘nine on the snap’ racks) that gave him a daunting 10-5 lead. Alcaide responded with his third ‘break and run,’ to which Yapp responded with his second, to which Alcaide responded with his fourth.
At 11-6, Yapp took rack #18 and reached the hill, just ahead of Alcaide chalking up his 7th rack; in a way, teasing the audience, who were still out there, hoping for that hill-hill thriller. It was not to be, as Yapp broke and finished it at 13-7.
It had been a long, grueling pair of weeks for Yapp, beginning with his victory at the inaugural Battle of the Bull in Roanoke the week before. And it is going to continue as Yapp leaves Norfolk, VA bound for warmer temperatures as he prepares for the Puerto Rico Open on Tuesday (Nov. 5).
“No time to rest,” he said with a grin, after accepting his trophy for the International Open title.
He’s been working with a psychologist and his coach Toh Liah-Han on aspects of his mental game. Both sources reinforcing the importance of getting needed rest to help in maintaining focus. It’s working.
“Today, before the final,” he noted. “I went up to rest in my room.”
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