Savannah Easton
Kicking off the July 4th weekend, the final 16 competitors on the winners’ side of the double-elimination bracket for the WPA’s 8-Ball World Championships at the Oneida Casino Hotel in Green Bay, WI are set for matches that will begin tomorrow (Friday, July 4th) at 2 p.m. Winners of those eight matches will have qualified for single-elimination play, set to begin on Saturday, July 5 at 1 p.m. As we begin this report on Thursday, July 3 at around 9:30 p.m. (EDT; 8:30 p.m in Green Bay, WI), competitors on the loss side are engaged in a second round of 16 matches, the winners of which will advance (tomorrow, July 4) to play another round of 16, scheduled for noon. The winners of those noon-time matches will advance to a third round-of-16, their loss-side qualification round for advancement to Stage 2 single elimination. We’ll update the loss side matches after identifying the final 16 on the winners’ side.
As a culture, we tend to root for the ‘Cinderella’ competitors, engaged in battle with the ‘wicked stepsisters of the world,’ battling against seemingly overwhelming odds toward a happy ending. While the original tale is gender-specific, modern, comparative ‘Cinderella’ scenarios play out on a wide variety of gender-neutral ground. The three youngest ‘Cinderella’s in Green Bay, Wisconsin this weekend are still in play; one of them on the winners’ side of the ongoing double-elimination bracket, as the other two are battling on the loss side.
The youngest, Savannah “Roadrunner” Easton, shut out her opening-round opponent, Susan Williams and in a match, earlier today (Thurs., July 3), she was defeated 7-1 by Chia-Hua Chen 7-1. She ‘turned (that) table’ over against her first, loss-side opponent, defeating Costa Rica’s Adriana Villar 7-1 this evening and is scheduled to face the WPBA’s current #5, Tzu-Chien Wei at noon tomorrow (Fri., July 4). Sofia “Pink Dagger” Mast won her opening match as well, downing Tina Larsen 7-4, but she fell to “Kwikfire” Kelly Fisher in the second round 7-1. Mast won her opening-round, loss-side match 7-3 to Poland’s Katarzyna Wesolowska 7-3 and like Savannah, is scheduled to be at the tables tomorrow at noon against just-beyond-junior competitor, Kennedy Meyman. Dependent on the results of tomorrow’s, loss-side noon action, Easton and Mast could square off to determine which of them will advance to single elimination at around 4 p.m. That will be a match to see if it sets up that way.
The last ‘Cinderella’ story is still at work on the winners’ side. Like the other two, 14-year-old Jordan Helfrey has been ‘playing above her pay grade’ since the start. She entered the event as #39 on the WPBA rankings list, a position she is likely to be leaving behind before the weekend’s up. Based on FargoRate-calculated odds of winning matches against her opponents thus far, she had a 25% chance of defeating her first opponent, Veronique Menard and defeated her 7-3. She stood only a 3.8% chance of defeating her second opponent, Meng-Hsia (“Bean”) Hung and took her down 7-5. Without revealing odds that might prove disheartening, tomorrow’s opponent, Tapei’s Chieh-Yu Chou, presents an even tougher challenge. That said, like most “Cinderella” stories, they become newsworthy when they start beating the odds and chalk up small victories, before moving on to larger challenges. That match, scheduled for 2 p.m., is likely to be another good one to watch. You should be able to see that and the other early matches at a later time, on either Amazon Prime Video, if you have a subscription, or WPBA’s YouTube Channel. A given, earlier match might be available by rewinding beyond whatever the live match might be. Helfrey’s match is one of two ‘featured’ matches on the bracket schedule.
Here’s how tomorrow’s 4th of July schedule shapes up. At 2 p.m. on the winners’ side, Kristina Tkach will take on Japan’s Yuki Hiraguchi, Margarita Fefilova will battle Tapei’s Shui Ching Chiang and Helfrey gets Chou. Slovenia’s Ana Gradisnik, who sent Lonnie Fox-Raymond to the loss side in a double-hill match in the second round, will take on the Philippines’ Chezka Centeno. Jasmin Ouschan will follow her shutout over Rachel Lang earlier today and will pick up Norway’s Nina Torvund. Pia Filler and Caroline Pao fought a spirited double-hill fight, which advanced Pia to take on Korea’s Seo Seoa.
Vietnam’s Nguyen Bich Tram, who sent Tzu-Chien Wei to the loss side, double hill, will draw Taipei’s Chia-Hua Chen, who was responsible for sending the “Roadrunner” to the loss side. Kelly Fisher, who sent the “Pink Dagger” to the loss side, takes on Bulgaria’s Kristina Zlateva. That match has been labeled on the bracket schedule as one of the ‘feature’ matches.
Loss-side matches, scheduled to begin at noon will feature Kennedy Meyman versus Sofia Mast, Savannah Easton against Tzu-Chein Wei (another good one to watch), Ashley Benoit against Caroline Pao (yet another good one) and Spain’s Maria Ropero Garcia vs. Japan’s Chihiro Kawahara. Portugal’s Sara Rocha is set to take on Taipei’s Wan-Ling Wang, Meng-Hsia (Bean) Hung will meet Tapei’s Shin-Mei Liu.
We pause here for a moment to determine which of four competitors will advance at the conclusion of their loss-side matches and determine which of the competitors will advance to play in tomorrow’s noontime matches. . . .
Lonnie Fox-Raymond has just eliminated Briana Miller 7-5 and will play. . . . April Larson and Indonesia’s Annita Kanjaya are playing the last game of a double hill match, and the winner is. . The Grinder, April Larson. She and Fox-Raymond will square off at noon tomorrow.
You can check the progress of this event, currently playing out in a double-elimination format, which will switch to single elimination once the 64-entrant field gets down to 16 competitors, eight from each side of the digitalpool bracket at https://digitalpool.com/tournaments/2025-oneida-wpa-womens-8-ball-world-championship/viewer.
Featured matches are being streamed in two places; for free, through the WPBA’s YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3nECcig-zgKYfFvkS15hQ or by subscription to Amazon Prime on its Sports tab.
