Francisco Sanchez Ruiz secured his first World Nineball Tour ranking title in more than a year and fifth overall at the FSR91 Nineball Open in Vigo, Spain, defeating David Alcaide in Saturday’s final.
Having not emerged victorious in a WNT ranking event since becoming world champion in February of last year, Sanchez Ruiz ended his year-long title drought and pocketed the $6,500 top prize.
Alcaide claimed two of the first three racks of the final, the first of which involved a tense safety battle, but El Ferrari soon gained the ascendancy and motored into an 8-2 lead.
Alcaide did manage to gain a slender foothold in the contest and made the scoreline slightly more respectable, although there was ultimately no route back into the final for him as Sanchez Ruiz closed out a 13-5 victory.
Sanchez Ruiz had begun his campaign with comfortable wins over Spain’s Manuel Castro Gonzalez and Britain’s Danny King, before edging past Italy’s Pierfrancesco Garzia 9-8 in a thrilling winners’ qualification match.
The 2022 US Open champion then brushed aside Portugal’s Bruno Bernardo 10-2 to reach the quarter-finals, before dominating both Turkey’s Mustafa Alnar and Spain’s Jonas Souto Comino 10-0 and 10-2 respectively.
Alcaide, meanwhile, was involved in an epic last 16 contest against Francesco Candela, perhaps the match of the tournament, battling back from 5-1 and 9-5 behind to eventually see off the Italian in a deciding rack.
He then beat with Georgi Georgiev 10-6 in the quarter-finals, who himself had come through a hill-hill match in the previous round, before seeing off Fitim Haradinaj by the same scoreline in the semi-finals.
Elsewhere, Portugal’s Joao Grilo, who reached the last 16 of the Spanish Open Championship last year, came through a deciding rack affair against Mohammad Soufi to reach his maiden WNT ranking quarter-final.
Spanish amateur Diego Rey Fernandez enjoyed an impressive campaign, beating both Christos Papageorgiou and Manuel Montejo Fernandez before being denied in a deciding rack in the last 16.
Damian Massey stunned Jose Alberto Delgado in a hill-hill affair to reach the single elimination phase, while his British compatriot Tom Staveley endured back-to-back defeats early on in the tournament.
Finnish teenager Riku Rompannen was the biggest casualty during the double elimination phase, enduring a 9-7 defeat at the hands of Portugal’s Sara Rocha, a former runner-up on the Women’s Euro Tour.
The World Nineball Tour moves onto the stunning Modena next weekend for its first Italian visit, with the inaugural Marina Open taking place at the Marina Pool Club from April 5-7.
