Sitting cross-legged in his chair, Joshua Filler scratched his chin rueing what proved to be his final miss of the World 10-Ball Championship. The WPA world number one could only watch as Ruben Bautista worked around the table to finish the biggest upset of the tournament on Wednesday morning.
The new-look Predator WPA World 10-Ball Championship still featured a lot of the same old names coming through the winners’ side on the opening two days. But last year’s semi-finalist, Filler, highlighted the handful of aberrations at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
He lost to Alex Pagulayan on Tuesday before Bautista knocked him out on day two. The former nine-ball world champion and reigning Mosconi Cup MVP will have to wait at least one more year to add this event, one of the last major tournaments he hasn’t yet won, to his lengthy resume.
Meanwhile, three former winners of the event booked their spot in the final 16 on Wednesday night. Three more former world champions in other disciplines – Francisco Sánchez Ruíz, Carlo Biado and Fedor Gorst – joined them.
Winner of two of the last three editions of the championship, Eklent Kaçi, didn’t make that list. The Albanian, who took time off last year to heal after an off-road car crash, lost both sets to Aloysius Yapp in the winners’ qualification round and will need a win on Thursday to advance. He’ll face the winner of Gerson Martinez and Robbie Capito.
The three former world 10-ball champions – Ko Pin-Yi, Ko Ping-Chung and Wojciech Szewczyk – all gave up just one set each in the first two days. The Ko brothers impressed on Wednesday night on the TV tables, albeit in different ways.
The younger, Ping-Chung, won both sets against two-time world nine-ball champion Albin Ouschan. Pin-Yi, on the other hand, dropped the first set to Pagulayan, then rattled off eight-straight racks. Szewczyk did the same on an outer table against young Singaporean phenom Yip Kin Ling Leo.
Aloysius Yapp and Biado were the only players to not drop a set in the first two days. Yapp beat Dennis Laszkowski and Yannick Pongers before dropping Kaçi to the losers’ side. Biado, who reached the final of the Las Vegas Open last weekend, was even more impressive.
The 40-year-old Filipino player lost just four racks in total on Tuesday and Wednesday despite going through one of the toughest draws. He faced two players with a 800-plus Fargo rating. He downed Justin Sajich in the first round, then allowed Shane Van Boening only one rack in two sets. Wu Kun Lin offered the stiffest challenge, taking Biado to the hill in the second set of the winners’ qualification round.
Three Americans remain in the hunt to win a world championship on home soil, though all on the losers’ side. Skyler Woodward plays Sina Valizadeh, Hunter Lombardo takes on Denis Grabe and Van Boening will face Alnar Mustafa.
Wednesday afternoon’s second losers’ side round saw numerous pre-tournament favorites knocked out. Mustafa sent home Wiktor Zieliński, a former winner at this venue, which also hosts the Las Vegas Open.
Alex Kazakis hasn’t cashed at this event since 2019 and struggled again this year. After winning his first match, he lost to Ko Ping-Chung and Max Lechner. Another top player who hasn’t found success at the World 10-Ball Championship, Mario He, fell to Bader Alawadhi in the second losers’ side round. John Morra and Olivér Szolnoki also suffered early exits.
The United Kingdom’s only entrant and another pre-tournament favorite, Jayson Shaw, faces a challenging path to the final 16. He’ll battle Konrad Juszczyszyn on Thursday morning to set up a battle with Ouschan in the losers’ side qualification round. Juszczyszyn is a former European nine-ball champion and won the 2023 Puerto Rico Open, part of the Predator Pro Billiard Series.
