By: Erik Hjorleifson
Today was a very big day at the 39th U.S. Open in Chesapeake, Virginia. The day began with 32 players still in action; 8 were left on the winners side and 24 were left on the losers side. As you would expect the competition was fierce and the best players in the world were once again going head to head.
On the winners side the biggest long shot left was Ernesto Dominguez. He was up against Francisco Bustamante, who unlike most of the top players was hitting the break with huge power and hitting the rack square. Bustamante is known as one of the top breakers in the game and this style has worked for him as he advanced with an 11-6 win.
In the other winners side matches the closest affair was between Nick Ekonomoplous (Greece) and Warren Kiamco (Philippines), in this match Ekonompolous came away with the 11-10 victory. Dennis Orcollo also defeated Mike Dechaine and Shane van Boening moved on with a win over Karl Boyes. In the winners side semi finals Orcollo and Van Boening faced off, arguably two of the best players in the world. This one was close and Van Boening came away with an 11-8 victory.
The other semi-final match was between dark horse Ekonomopolous and Bustamante. The young player from Greece continued his strong play and advanced to the winners side final against Van Boening. Ekonomoplous has had some strong finishes in Europe but regardless of where he finishes from here this will be his highest finish in a North American event. Tomorrow Van Boening will go after his third U.S. Open in a row, attempting to become the first player to accomplish this feat. Mika Immonen, Darren Appleton and Nick Varner have also won the event twice in a row.
The losers side was packed with good matches. Justin Hall made the longest run on the losers side including notable wins over Alex Pagulayan, Darryl Peach and Karl Boyes. Hall's run was finally ended by Mike Dechaine. A nice bonus for Hall is that after this performance it will be hard to turn him down for the upcoming Mosconi Cup team which will take place in December. Most of the other players that finished near the end came over from losses late in the tournament on the winners side. Waleed Al Hassan from Qatar had some impressive wins with victories over John Scmidt and Earl Strickland, he eventually lost an 11-10 match to Chris Futrell. The tournament is now down to 4 players Dennis Orcollo vs Dechaine on the losers sides and Shan Van Boening vs Nick Ekonomopoulos in the hot-seat match.
The two remaining Canadians John Morra and Jason Klatt left it all on the table today. Morra started the day off with a nice win over Li He Wen (China) 11-3. His next match was against Darren Apppleton, and this one went right down to the wire. After trailing 6-0 Morra brought it back to 10-10 with him breaking. On the break the balls spread to difficult positions, this allowed Morra to go for a low percentage combo on the nine, he tried it and missed.
He left Appleton a very tough carom on the 9 and after studying the shot for a long time he stepped up and made it. Morra finished in 17th place. Jason Klatt had a fantastic day, he started out with a win over current World Champion Neils Feijen and went on to defeat Efren Reyes and Ernesto Dominguez. None of the opponents got past 7 in the race to 11 format. Klatts run came to an end against Warren Kiamco. The match was close in the early going but in the end Kiamco won 7 of the last 8 games not giving Klatt much chance.
To me it is surprising that the Europeans did not have a better showing this year, as they only have 1 player in the final 8. Especially considering that they have more experience in playing in tournaments with the 9 on the spot. I guess the break from the box rule took away this edge in experience as they are used to breaking from the rail. Also in their tournaments they have tapped balls instead of a rack your own format. Tomorrow promises to be another action packed day and you can catch all the action at accu-stats.com.
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