East Brunswick, NJ- The final day of the round robin stage of the Predator World Straight Pool Championships has been completed. Half the field has been washed out and names such as Davis, Williams, Cohen ,and Mekari will not be appearing tomorrow. Expected names Hohmann, Engert, Feijen, and Stepanov all advanced with undefeated records.
The biggest underdog to advance was Shaun Wilkie who had to win all four of his matches today. And being his first major 14.1 event, the odds looked bad for him to defeat experienced 14.1 players such as Petroni, Cohen, and Karabotsos. But he did it!
Shaun will be seeded #31 tomorrow and will face off #2 seed Niels Feijen. Stevie Moore also made it through by the skin of his teeth in his first 14.1 event. "This game is hard" said the slightly bewildered Moore. Moore will be seeded #32 and will face off with Hohmann in his first match of race to 150.
The ladies of the event held their own against the men. Jasmin Ouschan finished with a 5-2 record and had a close call match with beautiful Korean Champion Yu Ram Cha 100-86. Cha also gave Europe's #1 Stepanov a scare with a close 100-87 match . Cha still ended with 2 wins, a very good event considering Cha had only played 14.1 for the first time 5 days before the event started.
"Charlie Williams taught me how to play and I practiced as much as I could a few days before the event. It is a very difficult game, and at first I didn't like it. But now after playing here, I like it." commented Cha. Cha had a 56 ball run against Stepanov. Bo Ram Cha also had 2 wins in the event including a 100-93 win over Amsterdam Billiards house pro Chris Lynch.
Ouschan will be the only female advancing into the next stage and will take on Nick Van Den Berg first round.
The top seed of the round robin stage was Thorsten Hohmann with 7 wins, 0 losses, and holding his opponents to 170 points total. Niels Feijen was #2 seed with 7 wins , 0 losses, and only letting 200 points to be scored on him.
First round matches begin at 11:30 am and continue with last round starting at 10:00pm.
Tickets can be bought at the door or go to www.dragonpromotions.com for only online Saturday ticket sales.
