Proving that if at first you don't succeed you have to keep trying, relative unknown Lee Chenman earned his way in the 2005 Open Weert 9-Ball event and then went on to win the first prize of $4600.
Chenman was not one of the invited players, so he had to earn his spot in the event the old fashioned way. He had to win it. Losing 5-1 to Wendy Jans in a qualifying match on Saturday, Chenman was not deterred and re-entered a Sunday morning qualifier. From there, he won 4 straight matches and made it to the last 32 players standing.
On Sunday the last 32 players changed to a single elimination format. Big names in the last 32 were: Francisco Bustamante - Niels Feijen - Mika Immonen - Ralf Souquet - Oliver Ortmann - Nick van den Berg - Alex Lely - Thomas Engert - Marcus Chamat - Fabio Petroni - Rico Diks and Andreas Roskowsky.
The first round on Sunday featured three major upsets; Marcus Chamat lost 8-7 to German Marcus Buck, Ralf Souquet lost 8-6 to Jesse Thehu from Holland and Samir Kadur from Spain (who recently won the Eurotour event in Denmark) beat Thomas Engert 8-5. The most exciting first round match saw Mika Immonen beat Dutchman Niels Feijen in a nailbiter 8-7.
In the Last 16 almost all the favourites won, Nick van den Berg scraped thru beating Rico Diks 9-8 and the most surpising match was Chenman beating Oliver Ortmann 9-8.
The results of the last 9 were:
Mika Immonen - Francisco Bustamante 9-5
Nick van den Berg - Fabio Petroni 9-8
Lee Chenman - Thorsten Shober 9-7
Alex Lely - Jorn Kaplan 9-5
Semi Final
Nick van den berg - Mika Immonen 9-5
Lee Chenman - Alex Lely 9-8
In the Final Lee Chenman beat Nick van den Berg 10-5 and claimed the 6th Open Weert 9-ball 2005.
Francisco Bustamante won the "special event" Ringgame 10-ball and 8000 dollar.
Payouts
1st Lee Chenman $4600
2nd Nick van den Berg $2600
3rd/4th Alex lely / Mika Immonen $1300
5th/8th Francisco Bustamante - Fabio Petroni - Thorsten Shober - Jorn Kaplan $650
In the womens division it was Dutch Kynthia Orfanidis beating Niels Feijen's girlfriend Katrine Jensen from Denmark 6-5 and claimed the title and the $900 first prize in a field of 46 women.
