Jayson Shaw and the US Open Pool Championship are a match made in heaven. His eventually prosperous journey in nineball pool began there and the Brit therefore holds fond memories of the sport’s most historic major tournament.
Shaw was a young blackball player when initially making his US Open debut as a teenager but made an ultimately lucrative switch to the American version of the game and turned the USA into his home.
Shaw defeated the likes of Eklent Kaci, Francisco Sanchez Ruiz and Ko Ping-Chung on his way to reigning supreme at the US Open six years ago, a decade after promising his father that he would be wearing the green jacket one day.
“I’d finished third the year before, hill-hill and Shane [van Boening] made the nine on the break, and the year before I lost 11-10 to Ralf [Souquet] and finished fifth,” Shaw told Window’s Open. “I think in three years I’d finished third, fourth and fifth and then I’d had enough and the next year had to be my time.
“I’d went to that tournament for the first time when I was 16 with my dad. When I first went there I seen all these guys with their green jackets and they got to go into the arena and take photos and it looked so cool. I was like ‘I want one of them’ and I told my dad that I would win it one day.
“That was when I’d first started playing nine-ball and when I’d first kind of started transitioning and then the next few years I just played on and off. But I always came to the US Open because they had a qualifier in Scotland.
“My dad obviously knew how good I was when I was young so he knew I was always going to be there or thereabouts. That was the first tournament I went to though with my dad so to win it after that was special. I’d always wanted to win the US Open. It was just the way it was set up with the green jacket and everything – it’s so prestigious.”
Shaw came through a thrilling hill-hill contest against Jeremy Sossei to qualify for the single elimination phase in unbeaten fashion, before being drawn against five-time champion Earl Strickland in a mouth-watering contest.
The world number five emerged victorious in convincing style as the former housemates renewed rivalries, with the respect between the two visible when the legendary American applauded post-match.
“I went into the match thinking I was going to win and I came out the winner,” Shaw reacted. “I played well in the match, he played well at the start, but I knew if a couple of things could go wrong for him that he would blow up. He missed the three ball at 4-3 and after that he just kind of gave up.
“He started talking about things so I just had to concentrate on myself. I feel like I played well, I’m cueing the ball well and I feel like I’m getting a bit more comfortable after each match. I’m breaking good, I’ve been working on that a lot recently and right now it’s working out.
“[Playing Earl at the US Open] is something that you collect in your memory. He’s nearly 70 and still playing at a high level so you can’t take him lightly and you’ve got to concentrate on yourself, but in other words he’s chirping in the corner.
“He’s calmed down a lot more recently and both of us have a lot of respect for each other. I like Earl a lot and I have a lot of respect for him.”
Shaw will lock horns with another American rival in Skyler Woodward in the last 16 for a place in his maiden major quarter-final in the World Nineball Tour era, with the Brit now four wins away from a second US Open crown.
“I do believe I’ve got the game to win the US Open,” expressed Shaw. “The big thing is that I’ve done it before and I think that all these other guys who’ve been there and done it before have an advantage, not a big advantage but an advantage.”
