Update from Big Red: Klatt Last Canuck Standing in Final 32

Jason Klatt playing De Luna Photo by Erik Hjorleifon

The World Nine Ball Championships has kicked into full gear at the Al Sadd Sports Stadium in Qatar. Today saw another 32 eliminated and the list of casualties was indicative of the overall quality of the players in the field. Some big names who ended up on the short end of the scoreline today included Ralf Souquet, Mika Immonen, Lee Van Corteza, Chang Jun Lin, Dennis Orcollo and the reigning champion Thorsten Hohmann.
Canada had two players remaining in action today, both playing during the 1:30 pm time slot. Alex Pagulayan was up against Mario He from Austria and Jason Klatt played Jeffrey Deluna from the Philippines. Alex took the early lead in his match at 3-0, Mario He then evened the score at 5 all. The turning point in the match came at 9 to 8 when He pushed out to a tough jump, he made it and proceeded to run the rack including a nice bank on the 3 ball. Mario finished off the match with an 11-8 win. He also defeated Chang Yu Lun, recent winner of the china open, earlier in the tournament. I've had a few conversations with the Lion this week and he seems enthused and rejuvenated about playing pool, particularly playing snooker. I believe his next snooker tournament will be the first week of July.

That left us with the last Canadian standing, Jason Klatt. Once again he was very impressive in this tough test against top Filipino player Jeff Deluna. As in his previous match, he jumped out to an early lead at 6 to 0. What was particularly impressive about his play in the beginning of the match was that he was playing a controlled break, taking the 1 ball on the same path at the same speed and playing the cue ball in the same area every time. This is the first player that I have seen that has played some sort of consistent break. There are a few reasons it is so hard to have a controlled break under these conditions. Mainly the 1 ball is coming past the side with frequency because of the speed requirements that must be met in order to not risk committing an illegal break. Klatt broke and ran his first three racks, shooting a very similar opening shot each time. He finished with about 5 or 6 total and was in control the whole match extending that lead to 9-2 and after a small comeback, Jason finished the match off with an 11-6 win. Going into the final 32 we have one Canadian left. The only other North American left is Shane Van Boening, who plays Dang Jin Hu from China at 6:30 am Eastern time. Klatt will play Carlo Biado from the Phillipines at 4 am Eastern time tomorrow. There will be 3 rounds total tomorrow narrowing the field down to 4 players. Let's go Jason!!

Jason Klatt Photo by Erik Hjorleifson