Suad Kantarevic Earns First Career Joss Tour Win in Utica
Matt Tetreault, Andrea Duvall (room owner) and Suad Kantarevic
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour crowned another first time tour stop winner as Suad Kantarevic won the third “Supplemental Tour Stop” at Utica Billiards on the Boulevard on July 10-11.
Kantarevic was one of fifty three players who came out to this “Supplemental” tour stop, held before the tour officially kicks off it’s 2021/2022 season in October. Kantarevic’s best career finish on the tour was a runner-up finish in last year’s N.E. Pool & Billiard Hall of Fame 9-Ball Open, dropping his finals match to Rodney Morris. Morris was not an obstacle for Kantarevic at this event, thought it might not have mattered as well as he was playing. Kantarevic cruised through Saturday matches against Glen Van Court, Cliff Hard, Jordan Turner and Jim Kearney, without allowing an opponent more than four games in any one match.
Sunday got started with Kantarevic still in top gear, as he sent Nick Brucato to the one loss side 9-3 in the first match of the day. That left Matt Tetreault as the last obstacle between Kantarevic and the hot-seat, after Tetreault defeated Dave Dreidel in their early Sunday match 9-8. The hot-seat match with Tetreault proved to be Kantarevic’s biggest challenge of the weekend, and he won it 9-7.
Brucato was on a tear on the one loss side, with dominating wins over Marko Clarke and Peter Khuoc, but he had no answer for Tetreault, dropping their semi-final match 7-1.
Any momentum that Tetreault may have gained with the win over Brucato was quickly stifled as Kantarevic ran away with a 9-3 win in the first set of the finals for his first ever Joss NE 9-Ball Tour win.
Sunday’s second chance tournament saw Bruce Carroll go undefeated, with three consecutive hill-hill wins (Christine Cockrell, Jim Kearney and Rohit Aggarwal for the hot-seat) on his way to the hot-seat. Aggarwal came from the one loss side to offer one more challenge for Carroll but Carroll won the first set of the finals 3-0 for the tournament win.