By: Erik Hjorleifson
Day 3 is now in the books at the 39th annual U.S. Open 9 ball championships in Chesapeake, Virginia. Today was a big day for winners side matches as we went from 64 players to 16 players left on the winners side by the end of the day. There was also some losers side matches today and some parts of the bracket are in the final 64 stage and some parts of the brackets are in the final 96 stage.
Starting off the day Earl Strickland was up against Dang Jinhu (China). Earl fell behind to an early 4-1 deficit but took control from there and advanced with an 11-5 win. At this point in the tournament, Strickland looked very strong and he is once again proving to be a threat to win any tournament he enters.
In the next round Strickland would face The winner of Robb Saez and Shane Van Boening. At one point in this match Van Boening was down 9-5 but made a great comeback to win 11-10. He would carry on that momentum against Strickland in the next round with an 11-7 victory. There were a lot of close scorelines, here are some winners side matches that went right down to the wire:
Jason Klatt 11 - Erik Hjorleifson 10
Thorsten Hohmann 11 - Li He Wen 10
Chris Futrell 11 - B. Shearer 10
Corey Deuel 11 - Jayson Shaw 10
Mike Dechaine 11 - Jusin Bergman 10
Quan D.H 11 - Johnny Archer 10
Jorge Rodriguez 11 - Skyler Woodward 10
Shane Van Boening 11 - Robb Saez 10
A couple of matches that were one sided were Nick Van Den Berg defeating Mika Immonen 11-2 and Darren Appleton defeating Alex Kazakis 11-4. Of the 16 players remaining on the winners side 5 are American and 5 are European, 3 are Filipino and 3 are from other countries.
The 4 remaining Canadians were all in action today; the day started with Jason Klatt vs Erik Hjorleifson. We both played high quality matches with several break and runs each and very few errors. I took the lead 10-6 and after a couple of break and runs and a safety error Jason brought it back to hill hill. I pushed on the break and he left me a tough safety exchange but make-able shot on the 1. Unfortunately I came up short this time and Klatt went on to run out for the win.
He then went on to defeat Justin Hall 11-8 to book a place in the final 16 on the winners side against Mike Dechaine, best of luck to Jason. John Morra was slotted in the night match against Francisco Bustamante and after an early miss on a tough nine by Morra, Bustamante took control in the middle of the match locking out Morra for 4 games.
It was too much to overcome and Bustamante went on to win 11-6. Morra will await the result of losers side matches and his next match will be at 10 30 pm Thursday. Alex Pagulayan continued his charge on the losers side with a win over Marc Vidal and will have a tough opponent up first tommorow in Ralf Soquet.
Play will continue all day tomorrow and live streaming will be available at accustats.com
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