Moritz Neuhausen and Aloysius Yapp
Semi Pro Open 9-Ball and Predator’s Junior American Series Championships conclude
Four days of non-stop, day-into-night action in four separate tournaments at the 2024 International Open in St. Augustine, FL, all came to a conclusion yesterday (Friday), when Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp successfully defended the 9-ball title he first earned at the 2023 International Open in Norfolk, VA. Yapp went undefeated through the 128-entrant field, downing eight opponents, four each in double and single elimination phases of the tournament, and defeated Germany’s ‘rising star,’ Moritz Neuhausen in the finals.
Earlier in the day, Ramon Alvarado and Justin Mawyin fought a double-hill match in the finals to earn (to the best of our knowledge) his first major title. In the 2024 Predator Junior American Series Championships, Lazaro Martinez III went undefeated and bested Joey Tate in the finals to claim the 16-entrant, 19U Boys title. With his 20th birthday coming up in June, it was likely to have been among the last events at which Tate will be an ‘official’ junior competitor. Eight young women competed for the 19U Girls title and it was 13-year-old Jordan Helfrey who went undefeated to claim that title, defeating Joey Tate’s younger sister, Noelle, twice, in a winners’ side semifinal and final of that event.
It should also be noted that as we prepare to tell you a little more about how the Open 9-Ball tournament played out at the end, there are two more tournaments going on. As this report is being prepared, you might, at some point, want to take a break from reading it to catch the live-streaming events of the $4,000-added, 10-Ball “Big Foot” Challenge Invitational, which was scheduled to begin at noon today (Friday) in the Simonis Aramith TV Arena, with a match between Canada’s John Morra and Hong Kong’s Robbie Capito. At 2:45 p.m. in the Arena, Open semifinalist Pijus Labutis will square off against Lee Van Corteza. At 5:30 p.m., Shane Van Boening will take on Roberto Gomez and in ‘prime time’ (8:15), Open champion Aloysius Yapp will battle world champion Fedor Gorst. At tables surrounding the Arena (also available via PayPerView through the International Open Web site), 42 competitors will begin a series of round robin ‘flights’ leading to an eventual, single-elimination bracket of 16 in the $30,000-added, International Straight Pool Open (formerly Peter Burrow’s American 14.1 Straight Pool Championships).
So, back to the last three matches of the International 9-Ball Open . . .
Jordan Helfrey
It has been a relatively quiet year for its event champion Aloysius Yapp, with the distinction traceable to the fact that while 2023 was his best (recorded with us) earnings year at the tables since he first showed up on AZBilliards’ radar a dozen years ago, he chalked up only two fewer cash payout appearances in 2024, and won the same number of events (2). Yapp appears to have an affinity for the fall season, as all four of his event victories in the last two years, have happened, weeks apart, in that season. He won the inaugural Battle of the Bull in October of 2023 and his first International 9-Ball Open title later that month, spilling over into the first week in November. He was a member of the Asian team that captured the inaugural Reyes Cup in Manila last month and won his second International Open 9-Ball title last night.
Win, lose or draw, Yapp is something of a shy, quiet man at the tables, not given to even the slightest display of overt enthusiasm or frustration. He goes about his business as if the skills he brings to shooting pool are as straight-forward and simple as preparing his own breakfast. His work appears to lack intensity, though none of his eight opponents would likely argue with his skill, concentration or focus on the tasks at hand.
His eight-match march to the title began in the double-elimination phase of the tournament with four wins, only the first of which appeared to be a proverbial ‘breeze.’ He got by Michael Yednak 10-2 in his opening round and backed that up with a ‘less breezy’ 10-7 victory over Corey Deuel. Boznia-Herzegovina’s Sanjin Pehlivanovic almost sidetracked Yapp’s path to single elimination with a double-hill challenge in the third round, but Yapp dropped the last 9-ball. Poland’s Wiktor Zielinski almost got that close in the final winners’ side qualifying round, but Yapp persevered and downed him 10-8 to move on to single elimination.
Yapp’s eventual opponent in the finals, Moritz Neuhausen, did get sidetracked to the loss side in his quest for the title. Following victories over Stefan Sprangers (7), and The Iceman (Mika Immonen; 8), Neuhausen sent John Morra over (6) and then ran into one of the event’s ‘most likely to succeed’ candidates, Joshua Filler, in the last winners’ side qualifying round. Filler entered the single-elimination phase of the event with a 10-7 win, as Neuhausen packed ‘light’ for what would be his only chance on the loss side to qualify for advancement.
Neuhausen drew USA Mosconi Cup team member, Billy Thorpe, who’d started his loss-side trip by eliminating Corey Deuel 10-2 (no ‘mean’ feat, no matter how you look at it) and then defeated Ukraine’s Vitaliy Patsura 10-8 to draw Neuhausen. They came within a game of double hill, but Neuhausen edged out it front to win it 10-8 and was in.
Yapp opened the single-elimination phase of his title journey with victories over Kledio Kaci (8), and Bulgaria’s Georgi Georgiev (6) and drew the Netherland’s BCA Hall of Famer, Neils Feijen, in one of the semifinals. Neuhausen, in the meantime, began his single-elimination trip by almost being eliminated. Greece’s Alex Kazakis handed him a double-hill challenge in that opening round, but Neuhausen hung on to win, had a much easier time defeating Carlo Biado 10-5 and drew Lithuania’s Pijus Labutis in the other semifinal.
Lazaro Martinez III
With very little, but some drama the International 9-Ball Open’s Final Four have at it
Pittsburgh, PA’s PNC Bank launched a television marketing campaign in March that advertises their services as “Brilliantly Boring since 1865.” The campaign emphasizes that being ‘boring’ (in banking, at least) equates to being smart, steady and dependable. The final four matches of the 9-Ball Open were anything but boring, especially for those pool enthusiasts who understand the game well and can appreciate the back-and-forth of each pair of turns at the table for two competitors, vying for a title with a hefty prize package; like baseball enthusiasts, who like nothing better than watching what some spectators might find ‘boring’ as the fundamental pitcher/batter duel plays out in a game that ends with a 1-0 score.
All three final matches had that PNC Bank marketing campaign’s characteristic of being smart steady, and played by dependable competitors. The most significant ‘drama’ of the five hours+ came in the semifinal match between Yapp and Feijen.
But first, in order, came Neuhausen and Labutis, for which Neuhausen set an immediate ‘tone’ by winning the first three games. Labutis got on the board by winning the fourth, but Neuhausen came right back to win the next two.
At this juncture, 5-1, they traded racks back and forth through the next five, with Labutis winning three of them. At 7-4, close enough to maintain a ‘comeback’ possibility, it was, for all intents and purposes, over. Neuhausen won the next three and Labutis conceded the 9-ball in the final rack.
The Yapp/Feijen match was another story altogether, both in terms of the game play itself and spectator interest in the ongoing ‘drama’ of Feijen’s very appearance in the semifinals. Feijen had qualified for single-elimination play by downing Jayson Shaw in the last, winners’ side qualifying round and then, in order, eliminated Fedor Gorst and Joshua Filler, both 10-8, in highly entertaining battles.
Good-sized crowd in the Arena for this match, many of whom had spent a lot of standing-room-only time watching Feijen defeat Filler at one of the outside-of-the-TV-Arena tables. There was a definite ‘buzz’ of anticipation in the very air as the event’s defending champion squared off against something of a fan-favorite ‘dark horse.’
Yapp took the opening two racks, Feijen won the third and Yapp came back to win the next two. Down 3-1, Fiejen mounted a four-rack run which excited the crowd, a lot. At 5-3, Yapp silenced them a bit, winning the next two to tie it up. Shooting at the next two balls in racks #9 and #10, Yapp accidentally dropped the 9-ball twice. A mild shot at the 2-ball in rack 9 was successful, but as balls continued to move, the 9-ball dropped, and he dropped the next 9-ball, breaking the 10th rack.
The two traded racks that left Fiejen in the lead at 7-6, at which point, Yapp popped the crowd’s anticipation ‘balloon’ by winning four straight and advancing to the finals.
More measured and deliberate game play leads to a ‘run away’ win for Yapp in the finals
“Captain Hook” (Mike Sigel, inducted into the BCA Hall of Fame in 1989 at 35) and Mark Wilson were in the stream booth for the final and before Yapp broke the first rack, he was enthusiastically and definitively predicting the win for him. As he watched and observed Neuhasen, who, unlike Yapp, had a tendency to reveal overt signs of both exuberant enthusiasm and demonstrable frustration which cost him at various points throughout the match, Sigel noted, numerous times, that “He’s young. He’ll learn.” Sigel would later articulate the opinion that in pool matches racing to 13, nothing very ‘telling’ was likely to happen until one or the other of the contestants hit double-digits.
He turned out to be right on all counts.
As he had done in the semifinal, Yapp won the first two and the last four games of the final. Neuhausen got on the board with a modest three-pack after Yapp had taken the early 2-0 lead. It would give Neuhausen his one and only lead.
Yapp tied it at 3-3 and then went on a ‘five-pack’ run that put him ahead 8-3 (the point, at which, if memory serves, Sigel made his ‘double-digit’ comment). Proving his point, Neuhausen checked in with two that brought the score to a presumably manageable for Neuhausen 8-5.
They traded racks to 9-6, before Yapp went on his match/tournament ending run of four to earn his second straight International 9-Ball Open title.
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