Saturday 9th June saw St Albans Hurricane Room host the Total9ball Amateur Grand Finals. The event was well supported with 26 entries and over £1100 in total prize money. T9B used the same format as the previous 8 amateur events with all players playing 3 league matches with the results all being placed into one league table. From there the top 16 players were split into 2 pots, 1st seeds and non seeds, for the Knock-Out draw.
The event began at 11am and it wasn’t long before the results started flying in. Wayne Rooke had the dream start to the league stages with two great 7-0 wins over Al John and Geoff Windeatt. The same couldn’t be said about one of the pre tournament favourites Courtney Symons who began with 2 straight defeats to Finlay Laing 7v6 a hard result to take as Finlay fluked the 8 ball and landed perfect on the 9 at Hill-Hill, and again 7v6 to ever improving Jaspal Bamotra. Would this dash Symons hopes of becoming Total9ball Amateur Champion? He would need a good win in his last game against Kevin Kelleher to even make it to the knock-out stages, a 7v2 was a much needed result for the GB9 Mark Lovell Challenge Cup 2012 Winner and helped him sneak into the last 16 in 15th place in the league. There were five players who made it through the league stages with a 100% win records they were Al Coton, Chris Buckmaster, Mark Parker, Phil Wildman and Rich Main these players would be joined in the pot of seeds by Alex Kontaroudis, Luke Rollison and Scott Foley who recorded 2/3 wins. A race to 3 shoot-out was needed to decide 16th place as Paul Taylor and Mikko Tuomi matched each other rack for rack, this was won 3v2 by Taylor.
After a short break the draw was made for the last 16 by Alex Kontaroudis playing in his last event before he moves back Greece. The line looked strong with players such as Courtney Symons, Tom Staveley, Jaspal Bamotra and Lewis Calcutt all in the non seeded pot. It was in this round where there were a couple of results that went against the form book. Wayne Rooke continued producing awesome 9ball beating ex professional Al Coton 7v2, Paul Taylor beat Alex Kontaroudis 7v6 all be it with a huge slice of luck. The pick of the other results was a good hill-hill win for Mark Parker against Jaspal Bamotra.
Phil Wildman achieved the biggest win of the Quarter Finals defeating Paul Taylor 7v1, but the come back of the round belonged to the seemingly on fire Wayne Rooke who battled back from 6v1 down to win 7v6 against travelling companion Mark Parker. The bottom half of the Quarter Final draw saw a 7v4 win for ever consistent Chris Buckmaster over Luke Rollison and at the 3rd attempt of the day Courtney Symons from Ipswich was on the winning side of a Hill-Hill match beating Rich Main 7v6. Losers in this round received £70 in prize money.
The Semi Final stage was set, Wildman continued his good record against Rooke winning 7v3, while on the table next door it was clear Courtney had found some form by beating Buckmaster 7v5. Losing Semi Finalists received £130 each.
So the Final was to be between Phil Wildman and Courtney Symons and these two players had never played before. Phil was undefeated so far in the comp with 6 straight wins could he continue his winning ways? He made the perfect start taking a 2v0 lead and seemed to control the match until he reached the hill with a 6v4 lead, Courtney showed a champion like spirit fighting back to take the match 7v6 and lift the trophy (with a very Ramesh Gokhul like pose) becoming Total9ball Amateur Series Champion pocketing a cool £350 in the process. Wildman also collected £230 as runner up.
This was a fantastic day of 9ball, the tournament was again very well organised by Nicole Hansen and the club just seems to get a better each time we go there with all the refurbishment work they are doing. There was a real buzz about the place with everyone eager to lift the trophy, well done to Courtney a great player really on the top of his game at the moment.
Total9ball are currently working on the next Amateur series with plans of a 4 event series and a Grand Final all to be played at St Albans using the double chance format, events will rotate between 9 and 10 ball. We hope for your continued support of these great events in the south.
