Andy Jethwa and Ming Ng win the Texas Amateur Tour’s inaugural event

Andy Jethwa, Vanessa Roan, JJ Roan and Roy Payton

Q-Stix Billiards in Houston, Texas hosted the Texas Amateur Tours 1st event on the weekend of Sept 18-19. With a total of 62 players, 48 in the Amateur and 14 in the women's open event, the numbers were down from expected but still a great event with a lot of positive feedback on the new tour. We had players from as far away as Baton Rouge in attendance, as well as Lafayette, San Antonio, Temple and Austin.

At the end of the day one there were 12 players left to come back Sunday and fight it out for the cash. On the winners side there was Tour Director Brent Thomas playing Roy Payton of Dayton, Texas.  Payton got this one 9-7.. Texas BCA Junior National winner, J.C. Torres played Will Felder, J.C took it down 9-8. David Parker played San Antonio's Jason Hunt and David got the nod here 9-5. The 4th match was Andy Jethwa getting past New Iberia, Louisiana's Chris Viatar 9-4.

The semi finals of the winner's side saw Roy Payton out gun J.C Torres 9-6. And the other match was a thriller as it was a hill-hill affair with Andy Jethwa sneaking past David "put up or shut up" Parker. In the Winners side final Andy got the hot seat by defeating Roy 9-6. Roy waited on the one loss side to eventually face David Parker who beat Brian Rosenbaum 7-3 and then got by the top player in the players auction Jimmy Majors by a score of 7-6. Roy and David squared off and Roy came out on top to face Andy in the finals of the 1st Texas Amateur Tour Event. Andy wasted no time in this match and got all the chips with a 9-4 win.On the women's open side we had a field of 14 players come out and play for the $300 added event. The players list was Sylvia Shipman, Heather Bryant, Tisha Hay, Courtney Peters, Judy Alvarez, Terry Petrosino, Robyn Petrosino, Ming Ng, Rebecca Riley, Deanna Kniola, Tiffany Boysen, Loretta Lindgren, Theresa Garland and Ricki Casper.

On the women's side we had some thrilling matches as the semi-finals of both sides were tight, we had Deanna squeak past Ricki Casper 7-5 to get into the hot seat match 1st, and she waited and watched a thriller of a match that went hill-hill between Ming Ng and Terry Petrosino.  Ming came out ahead this time 7-6.  It seems these two always play to the hill with each other and provide some good pool matches for the spectators.

In the hot seat match Ng got a quick start and never relinquished it as she got by Deanna 7-4. On the one loss side Terry had to battle it out with her daughter Robyn to see who was going get into the money, and face off against the shooter that was wrecking havoc, Courtney Peters. Courtney lost an early match and had won 3 in a row on the one loss side, she got by Terry 5-3 to make it 4 in a row, then she squared off with Deanna and they battled for awhile, I don't recall the score but no it was close and Courtney got the win for her 5th in a row and the chance to face Ng for the title. Courtney kept blazing, rolling past Ng 7-3 in the 1st set for her 6th win in a row. The 2nd set had a different outcome as Ng found a little rhythm and got the title with a 5-1 victory.

Payouts:

1st- Andy Jethwa   $775
2nd-Roy Payton     $500
3rd- David parker   $335
4th- Jimmy Majors  $200
5-6th- Brian Rosenbaum, J.C. Torres   $130
7-8th- John Powers, Gerald "Top water" Jackson   $85
9-12th-Jason Hunt, Chris Viatar, Will Felder, Brent Thomas  $50

Auction:

1st- $930
2nd-$470
3rd-$280
4th-$190

Women's Open:

1st- $300     Ming Ng
2nd-$200     Courtney Peters
3rd- $100    Deanna Kniola
4th- $50       Terry Petrosino

Auction:

1st- $125
2nd-$65

We would like to thank everyone that came out to play and we appreciate the support, if there is anything that you would like to be implemented into the rules or anything you would like changed please bring it to the attention of Brent Thomas or Melvin "Jr. " Miller.

We would also like to thank our sponsors Htownbilliards.com, Theactionreport.com(TAR), and Jay Helfert, Author of pool wars which you can find at JayHelfert.com.

Also a special thanks to Q-Stix Billiards ( J.J. & Vanessa Roan ) for hosting the event, they did a great job, had an awesome staff, and had some killer karaoke going by DJ Burner on Saturday night which kept everyone around till closing. 

The next event will be October 16-17, 2010 at Big John's Sports Bar.  See the schedule for more details at www.TexasAmateurTour.net