Karen Corr
Karen Corr won the Super Billiards Expo's (SBE) Women's Pro Championship in 2014, defeating Allison Fisher in the finals, and were it not for Vivian Villareal, the 2016 Diamond Women's Open 9-Ball Pro Players Championship would have featured the same two finalists. As it was, Vivian Villareal faced Corr in the finals, and Corr defeated her to capture her second SBE title. The event drew 32 of the top female competitors to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, PA, on the weekend of April 15-17.
The women's event featured something of a controversy, which resulted in a format change among the event's final eight players. While all other events at this year's SBE featured a final eight, single elimination format that in its opening and second (semifinal) round pitted winners against winners and losers against losers, leaving only one competitor on each side of the bracket, the women's event altered that format. Following a requested and granted meeting between both Allen Hopkins (junior and senior) and tour directors Doug Ennis and Frank DelPizzo, the final eight were seeded to pit winners and losers against each other in the opening round (and, as it turned out, second round) of single elimination play.
If you think of the final eight as winners' side opponents A, B, C & D, and the loss-side opponents as E, F, G & H, the original formula's opening, single elimination round pitted A versus B and C versus D on the winners' side, while on the loss side, E played F and G played H. In the second (semifinal) round, the winner of the A & B match faced the winner of the C & D match, while on the loss side, the winner of the E & F match faced the winner of the G & H match. This left one player on each side of the bracket. In the formula requested and granted to the women's tournament by Hopkins, in the opening round, A played E, B played F, C played G and D faced H. The concern, reportedly expressed by the "unanimous" vote of the women whose concerns were transmitted to Hopkins, Jr. and Sr., by tour directors Ennis and DelPizzo, was that the original formula provided an incentive for the competitors in the winners' side final eight (looking to advance to the single elimination round) to deliberately throw a match in order to face two weaker (loss side) opponents in an attempt to get to the finals. In effect, the proposal created an equivalent to baseball's "infield fly" rule, which, prior to enactment, provided infielders with an incentive to drop an infield fly ball, in order to secure a more favorable outcome; two outs, instead of one, by a double play, rendered possible by a dropped infield fly ball. Though a decision has yet to be made, discussions about making this format change standard for all future SBE events is on the organizers' agenda.
The women returned to the tournament, operating under the newly enacted format. Three winners' side matches advanced Allison Fisher, Jennifer Baretta, Karen Corr and Brittany Bryant to the final eight. On the loss side, a single match advanced Vivian Villareal, Emily Duddy, and Caroline Pao (they'd all lost in the winners' side final eight round). April Larson, who'd lost her opening match to Baretta, won four on the loss side to join them.
With the new format, Fisher faced Larson, Baretta faced Villareal (whom she'd sent to the loss side in the previous winners' side round), Corr faced Duddy and Bryant met up with Caroline Pao. Fisher eliminated Larson 13-4, Villareal defeated Baretta 13-8, Corr got by Duddy 13-5 and Caroline Pao sent Bryant home 13-9.
Thus, in the semifinals, two winners' side opponents (Fisher and Corr), faced two loss side opponents (Villareal and Pao), which could not have happened had the event followed the formula used by the SBE's other tournaments. Villareal, who was down 6-0 at the start, came back to defeat Fisher 13-11. Corr eliminated Pao 13-3. Corr completed her undefeated run and claimed the event title with a 13-8 victory over Villareal in the finals.
