Chris in NC
09-22-2003, 12:05 PM
Our quick trip to the U.S. Open is behind us. Though we only stayed in Chesapeake 27 hours, it was well worth the 6 hour drive each way.
I've never seen so many upsets as there were at the U.S. Open this year, and I've never seen so many great players dog so many critical shots - blowing easy outs in crucial situations. Gives us all a little hope I think.
We got there just in time early Saturday afternoon to see Corey, Bustamante and Alex eliminated by players that normally they should beat. Strickland had already been eliminated on Friday. Reyes and Souquet would also not make it to Sunday's final 4.
There is no doubt that Keith Mcready was by far the highlight and crowd favorite in this tournament. Despite his very unorthadox and downright awful form, he is a far better player than I ever thought he was. I had a feeling that Sunday was not going to go well for him, and it didn't. He seemed more nervous and less talkative in his winners bracket final match against Jeremy Jones - missing a number of early opportunities before Jeremy put him away. He was more competitive against Parica, and actually led the match at 7-6 before Parica took charge to win 11-8.
Although Keith has a great sense of humor, for us purists his behavior would have to be considered a form of sharking - kind of like Vivian Villarreal but even far moreso. I have no problem with a player who talks to the crowd and gets them involved, but Keith's comments often show disrespect towards his opponents. He and Parica got into it late in their match over a possible foul, as Parica was pretty much fed up with Keith particularly after having been victimized by Keith's antics in their match the night before. I really don't think Keith means to shark his opponent, but that's just the way he releases his stress. He was gracious in defeat in both of his matches Sunday. His performance clearly earned alot of respect from his fellow pro players in this event.
European's Feijen and Petroni were both impressive in this event - finishing 5-6. Petroni helped to rid his history of choking by knocking off Strickland and Reyes among others, before falling to Parica late Saturday night. He can be an agonizingly slow player, but has excellent form, a solid mental game and is obviously extremely talented. Nels also has a great game with great mechanics, and should be one of the top players in the world in a few years.
Johnny Archer had a solid tourney, but was unable to win a hill-hill match against Feijen late Saturday night. He seems to be getting more and more deliberate and less confident in his shotmaking ability - and would now have to be one of the slowest players on the tour IMO. All of his Saturday matches which I saw were well in excess of 2 hours, some nearly 3 hours. He made one of worst mental blunders I've ever seen a pro player make in a hill-hill match game against Max Eberle on Saturday night. In that case game, Archer was running out but left himself a near dead-in shot on the 8-ball near the end rail, with the 9 sitting only a foot from the far corner pocket - 1 diamond up from the side rail and end rail. Instead of sinching the 8-ball and leaving the cue-ball 6-12 inches off the end rail for a 98% match winning shot on the 9-ball, after taking 2-3 minutes he tried to force an angle to get the cue-ball farther up near the middle of the table. The 8-ball rattled and came out, but lucky for him he left Max absolutely no shot, so Johnny still won the match - undeservingly.
We saw Reyes miss a number of shots in his first loss (I can't remember against who), including a cinch 9-ball that I'm sure was a 99+ percentage shot for him.
Luc Salvas and Santos Sambajon played one of the most entertaining matches on Saturday evening. Salvas strung 5 consecutive racks (in a total of less than 5 minutes) to take charge, and led the match at 10-9, but Santos came back and won. Santos is a very underrated player. Luc is great to watch, but makes too many critical positioning errors and missed shots - that a player of that calibre simply should never make!
The attendance for this event was expectedly very low - far lower than the attendance two years when the tourney was interrupted by 9-11. On top of that, Q-Masters which is normally a tremendous money maker for Barry during tournament week was closed most of the time due to power outages and a nighttime curfew in Va Beach. I only hope Barry is able to recoup and continue this great event - with or without Charlie William's blessing.
I think the saddest thing I saw was the Sunday match between Parica and Morris. Why this match couldn't be held on the feature table before or after the winner's bracket final match I'll never know, but it took place the same time as the McReady - Jones match in which maybe 150 were in attendance watching. There was probably no more than 20 people watching this other match to determine 4th place and who would go on into the semi-finals. The table lighting on all the tables other than the feature tables was very poor. Sadly, Parica played an unbelieveable match running out nearly every rack against Morris who had little chance, but none other than a few of us were there to witness this great performance. From that match I had picked Parica to win it all, but he obviously didn't play nearly as well and/or have the oportunities against Jeremy in the finals. We had to leave before the finals - to get the young ones back at a reasonable hour for school today.
We're already looking forward to next year's event! - Chris in NC
I've never seen so many upsets as there were at the U.S. Open this year, and I've never seen so many great players dog so many critical shots - blowing easy outs in crucial situations. Gives us all a little hope I think.
We got there just in time early Saturday afternoon to see Corey, Bustamante and Alex eliminated by players that normally they should beat. Strickland had already been eliminated on Friday. Reyes and Souquet would also not make it to Sunday's final 4.
There is no doubt that Keith Mcready was by far the highlight and crowd favorite in this tournament. Despite his very unorthadox and downright awful form, he is a far better player than I ever thought he was. I had a feeling that Sunday was not going to go well for him, and it didn't. He seemed more nervous and less talkative in his winners bracket final match against Jeremy Jones - missing a number of early opportunities before Jeremy put him away. He was more competitive against Parica, and actually led the match at 7-6 before Parica took charge to win 11-8.
Although Keith has a great sense of humor, for us purists his behavior would have to be considered a form of sharking - kind of like Vivian Villarreal but even far moreso. I have no problem with a player who talks to the crowd and gets them involved, but Keith's comments often show disrespect towards his opponents. He and Parica got into it late in their match over a possible foul, as Parica was pretty much fed up with Keith particularly after having been victimized by Keith's antics in their match the night before. I really don't think Keith means to shark his opponent, but that's just the way he releases his stress. He was gracious in defeat in both of his matches Sunday. His performance clearly earned alot of respect from his fellow pro players in this event.
European's Feijen and Petroni were both impressive in this event - finishing 5-6. Petroni helped to rid his history of choking by knocking off Strickland and Reyes among others, before falling to Parica late Saturday night. He can be an agonizingly slow player, but has excellent form, a solid mental game and is obviously extremely talented. Nels also has a great game with great mechanics, and should be one of the top players in the world in a few years.
Johnny Archer had a solid tourney, but was unable to win a hill-hill match against Feijen late Saturday night. He seems to be getting more and more deliberate and less confident in his shotmaking ability - and would now have to be one of the slowest players on the tour IMO. All of his Saturday matches which I saw were well in excess of 2 hours, some nearly 3 hours. He made one of worst mental blunders I've ever seen a pro player make in a hill-hill match game against Max Eberle on Saturday night. In that case game, Archer was running out but left himself a near dead-in shot on the 8-ball near the end rail, with the 9 sitting only a foot from the far corner pocket - 1 diamond up from the side rail and end rail. Instead of sinching the 8-ball and leaving the cue-ball 6-12 inches off the end rail for a 98% match winning shot on the 9-ball, after taking 2-3 minutes he tried to force an angle to get the cue-ball farther up near the middle of the table. The 8-ball rattled and came out, but lucky for him he left Max absolutely no shot, so Johnny still won the match - undeservingly.
We saw Reyes miss a number of shots in his first loss (I can't remember against who), including a cinch 9-ball that I'm sure was a 99+ percentage shot for him.
Luc Salvas and Santos Sambajon played one of the most entertaining matches on Saturday evening. Salvas strung 5 consecutive racks (in a total of less than 5 minutes) to take charge, and led the match at 10-9, but Santos came back and won. Santos is a very underrated player. Luc is great to watch, but makes too many critical positioning errors and missed shots - that a player of that calibre simply should never make!
The attendance for this event was expectedly very low - far lower than the attendance two years when the tourney was interrupted by 9-11. On top of that, Q-Masters which is normally a tremendous money maker for Barry during tournament week was closed most of the time due to power outages and a nighttime curfew in Va Beach. I only hope Barry is able to recoup and continue this great event - with or without Charlie William's blessing.
I think the saddest thing I saw was the Sunday match between Parica and Morris. Why this match couldn't be held on the feature table before or after the winner's bracket final match I'll never know, but it took place the same time as the McReady - Jones match in which maybe 150 were in attendance watching. There was probably no more than 20 people watching this other match to determine 4th place and who would go on into the semi-finals. The table lighting on all the tables other than the feature tables was very poor. Sadly, Parica played an unbelieveable match running out nearly every rack against Morris who had little chance, but none other than a few of us were there to witness this great performance. From that match I had picked Parica to win it all, but he obviously didn't play nearly as well and/or have the oportunities against Jeremy in the finals. We had to leave before the finals - to get the young ones back at a reasonable hour for school today.
We're already looking forward to next year's event! - Chris in NC