By: Markus Noé
The Falcon Cues Québec Pro Tour kicked off its season this past weekend at L'Abaise Pool Hall in Trois Riveres Quebec. 43 players came out to support the first stop of the season and most of the usual suspects were in attendance. Tournament favourites such as Francis Crevier, Danny Hewitt, Alain Martel, Sylvain Grenier were all in attendance. Other notables were Dany Nguyen and Joey Cicero and Jeff Blais. This circuit is now beginning its third season and to the credit of the top pros in Québec it has been well attended throughout.
There was a minor upset in the first round as upstart young professional Joey Cicero beat last seasons Grand Finale Champion Francis Crevier 9-8. Another couple upsets would be Michael Bernier defeating Danny Hewitt 9-4 and Yan Lalande getting by Sylvain Grenier by the same scoreline.
Going into day two the final 4 who were unbeaten on the winners side were Dany Nguyen vs Joey Cicero and Alain Martel vs Steve Gilbert. With names like Hewitt, Grenier and Crevier already eliminated the field was wide open with the clear remaining favourite being Alain Martel. Martel won his match 9-7 and Cicero got by Nguyen 9-3.
On the losers side both Nguyen and Gilbert were able to win their matches in the 5/6 position and met up in the 4th place match with Nguyen winning 9-7. He earned himself a rematch against Cicero who just lost to Martel in the winners side final 9-4. Nguyen got his revenge eliminating Cicero in third place 9-7. In the final Martel just barely edged out his long time protege 11-9. The next tournament will be held at Dooly's Valleyfield September 16-17.
Payouts:
1 Alain Martel 1100 $
2 Dany Nguyen 810 $
3 Joey Cicero 600 $
4 Styve Gilbert 425 $
5 - 6 Éric Hamel 300 $
5 - 6 Yan Lalande 300 $
7 - 8 Guillaume Beaudet 200 $
7 - 8 Michaël Bernier 200 $
9 - 12 Luc Salvas 120 $
9 - 12 Steve Lampron 120 $
9 - 12 Sébastien Laramée120 $
9 - 12 Marco Caron 120 $
Alain Martel vs Erik Hjoreleifson Challenge Match!
As many have you seen on Facebook two of the best players in Canada have been jabbing at each other. Erik "Big Red" Hjorleifson has made the case that he and others believe that the legend Alain "The Dancing Bear" Martel is no longer a top 5 player in the country. To go further lately Martel has been getting told by Danny Hewitt himself that it is actually Hewitt is now the number one player in Québec and has been for some time.
With all this being said the Bear has been fighting back and not only saying he is still number in the province but he is still among the top names in the country such as John Morra, Alex Pagulayan and Jason Klatt. Hjorleifson plans to show him this is not a reality and an epic match has been set to begin next week. The poster above shows that this will take place over 4 days and almost every discipline imaginable will be played, so by the end it will be indisputable who the better player is.
There will be an overall bet between these two players and we invite people who would want to place a wager to reach out. I would imagine that between the people who are in attendance they will also be placing wagers on each individual match. This will be a big sweat for all pool junkies so make sure if you are in the area you reserve your seat now!
