Wiktor Zielinski sealed his third World Nineball Tour ranking accolade in Malden, Massachusetts, defeating Tyler Styer 13-8 to win the second staging of the McDermott Classic on St Patrick’s Day.
Zielinski, whose previous ranking titles were the Bucharest Open in Romania and the Lasko Open in Slovenia, added the $9,000 title to his haul in ideal preparation for the forthcoming Premier League Pool in Connecticut.
The world number eleven had beaten Mosconi Cup regular Styer during the double elimination phase, before emphatically beating Canada’s Martin Daigle 11-1 to reach the quarter-finals.
There, Zielinski grounded out an 11-8 win over Denmark’s Mickey Krause, before pulling off a sensational comeback from 9-3 down to beat recent Derby City Classic champion Joshua Filler 11-9 at the penultimate hurdle.
Styer, meanwhile, defeated both Francisco Sanchez Ruiz and Moritz Neuhausen, before battling back from 10-4 behind against Mario He in a dramatic hill-hill affair that saw the Austrian miss a match-winning nine ball.
He created an opportunity to close out the match and avoid a deciding rack, although the nine ball wobbled slightly before contact, causing him to miss a routine shot by a considerable distance.
Elsewhere, American teenager Sam Henderson defeated Michael Feliciano on his way to qualify for the single elimination phase, while Canada’s Daigle battled through the one-loss side, defeating Albin Ouschan to reach the last 16.
The next World Nineball Tour ranking tournament takes place in Vigo, Spain from March 28-30, while the next event on American soil is the Players Championship as part of the Super Billiards Expo in Philadelphia.
