U.S. Open: Immonen remains undefeated

Hohmann wins nine in a row to beat Corteza

Video from azbilliards.com
Mika Immonen continues to roll on undefeated during the 35th annual U.S. Open this week in Chesapeake, Virginia. The winner of the last two U.S. Opens easily swept past Max Eberle, 11-5, in one of the featured matches Wednesday night.

But while playing with confidence, Immonen's game was not without errors. And on occasion those errors cost him. For instance, Eberle responded to a missed ball in the 13th game with a spectacular table-length kick. The kick then opened the door to a deliberate and plodding run-out by Eberle. But Immonen responded with several victories. Eventually Immonen's relentless ball pocketing sent Eberle to the one-loss side.

In other action from the winner's side, Thorsten Hohmann beat Lee Van Corteza 7-11. Hohmann dramatically fought back from a 7-2 deficit to win the set. Corteza played almost error free for the first half of the match and Hohmann played without mistakes during the second half. For much of the last 20 minutes, Corteza's only defense was to scowl at Hohmann from his chair. Hohmann took the last nine games in a row, several through break and runs.

Nick Varner also beat Ernesto Dominguez, 11-10, on the winner's side and Efren Reyes beat Japanese player Tomoo Takano 11-2. Mike Sigel beat Ivaylo Petrov 11-5, but he won't be meeting Earl Strickland in a winner's side match. That's because the five-time U.S. Open winner lost Wednesday night 11-10 to Jesse Engel. Engel's victory sent Strickland to the loser's bracket.

Hofstatter the Last Woman Standing

Meanwhile, in action from the one-loss side on Wednesday, Mike Dechaine eliminated Scott Higgins 11-8; Alex Pagulayan eliminated Tony Crosby 11-3; Shawn Putnam eliminated Robert Pole 11- 4 and Dennis Orcullo eliminated Chris Szuter 11-6.  Other eliminations included Chris Bartram's 11-9 victory over Roberto Gomez, Shane Van Boening's 11-3 victory over Steve Sones, John Schmidt's 11-6 victory over Steven Page 11-6,  and Gerda Hofstatter's squeak-by 11-10 victory over John Timmermans. 

Hofstatter is the last woman standing, making her a shoe-in for the $1,000 prize that promoter Barry Behrman is offering for the woman who finishes the highest in the event.

A few of the more interesting sets to watch out for include Johnny Archer's upcoming winner's side match with Stevie Moore, Nick Varner's upcoming match with Rodney "The Rocket" Morris and Ralf Souquet's upcoming match with Raj Hundal. Still waiting to hear whether they'll be played on the TV table.


I've posted AZbilliard's excellent video round-up of Tuesday action above. (Still waiting on the Wednesday update.) You also can keep up with the tournament at Accu-Stats, which is webcasting several matches each day. You can find the link here. I'll also be occasionally updating the Pool History Facebook page with news from Chesapeake. You can check out the page here

-- R.A. Dyer