The Predator 9-Ball
Tour made it’s debut in Stamford, Connecticut
this past weekend as Rack N’ Roll Billiards
played host to stop #10. A very strong field of
51 players came out to support.
Top players included, newly crowned 2008 BCA Generationpool.com
women’s champion Xiao-Ting Pan, WPBA #2
ranked Ga-Young Kim, Mika Immonen, Marc Vidal,
Shin Park, Mike Fingers, Bobby Blackmore, Victor
Nau, Jeremy Sossei, Chuck Altomare, Steve Lillis,
Ray McNamara and the great Earl Herring.
After losing her third match to Victor Nau, Ga
Young Kim won her next two matches on the one
loss side before losing a hill-hill match to reigning
Ocean State Champion Jeremy Sossei. Xiaoting Pan
won her first three matches before losing to Robles
9-3 and would end with a 9th-12th finish.
Marc Vidal was having his way on the winner’s
side until he lost a heart breaker to Mika Immonen
9-8. Meanwhile, Mike Fingers was tearing them
up on the top side of the winner’s bracket
including a win over Shin Park 9-4. Mike had a
few missed opportunities against Tony Robles which
cost him the match 9-6.
This set up the match between Tony and Mika for
the hot seat. It was all Mika as he played a near
flawless match to earn the win 9-3 sending Robles
to the left side of the chart. Meanwhile, Shin
Park knocked Marc Vidal out of the tournament
9-3 and got revenge against Mike Fingers to earn
a spot in the semifinal against Robles.
This was Tony’s chance to break the Shin
Park curse. (Tony had a 0-9 record against Shin
going into this match.) A determined Tony capitalized
on a few mistakes by Park and took the win 9-5
to set up the final with Mika.
In the final, both players started out strong
but Tony lucked in three balls in one rack with
the match tied 4-4 and again another ball in the
next rack. That’s all it took to close the
deal on Immonen as Robles finished out the following
rack to take the 7-5 win.
Stop #11 will be taking place next week at Park
Slope Billiards in Brooklyn, NY. Please visit
www.predator9balltour for more information, payouts
and standings.