Day 1 Results From The Turning Stone Classic

Event Room at Turning Stone Casino, Photo By Alain Parent 

By Erik Hjorleifson 

Day 1 at the Turning Stone Classic is in the books. Yesterday featured 64 first round matches which were played on the 16 diamond tables set up at the event center in the Turning Stone casino in Verona, New York.  Most of the favourites advanced, although this tournament is not seeded there weren't to many match ups of  tournament favourites. 

Some of the more notable match-ups were former World Champion Hudjie See (Holland) against Oscar Dominguez; See came away with a strong 9-3 victory. Dominguez's father Ernesto Dominguez also had a tough first round opponent in Ron Casanzio, a consistent performer on the Joss tour. Casanzio came away with the 9-6 victory.

Canadians Martin Daigle and Dany Normandin

In total there are 15 Canadians in the tournament all from Quebec and Ontario. The most highly contested opening match was between Martin Daigle from Quebec City and Danny Hewitt from Montreal. Both are very capable players who are among the best in Canada. 

Daigle jumped out to a 5-1 lead but fell short in the end with Hewitt making a strong comeback to advance with a 9-6 win. Look for Hewitt to be one of the contenders as the tournament progresses. John Morra, the other strong hope for Canada moved on to the second round with a 9-1 victory where he will be tested against a strong player from the Northeast, Travis McKinney. In another all Canadian battle Mario Paradis manufacturer of the increasingly popular Chalk Cube (Quebec) defeated Brittany Bryant multiple time 
Canadian women's champion with a 9-4 score line. Canadians advancing on the winners side today include:

Dany Normandin
Roger Miller
Frank Peters 
Kayla Jones
Jay Goyer 
Karim Attia
Alain Parent

Players coming back on the one loss side:

Richer Francoueur
Chris Bateman 
Jesse Piercey

American and international favourites such as Van Boening, Hatch, Dechaine, Strickland, Hohmann and Archer advanced with combined scores of 54-2 against their underdog opponents. Tomorrow's feature matchups include:

Donny Mills vs. Mika Immonen
Johhmy Archer vs. Matt Krah
Tom D'Alfonso vs. Thorsten Hohmann
Warren Kiamco vs Hudjie See

Play begins again Friday at noon, matches will be run all day and can be viewed on Ustream free of charge at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/turning-stone.