Johann Chua overcame Shane van Boening in a 13-8 victory to seal his fifth World Nineball Tour ranking title at the third staging of the Battle of the Bull at Wolf’s Den Billiards in Roanoke, Virginia.
Chua doubled his title tally for the season, winning his fourth title in four weeks following on from his Dubai Open success, securing the $20,000 top prize and strengthening his grip on Reyes Cup qualification.
Following closely-contested early exchanges in the final, which saw numerous safety battles unfold, Chua put together two break and runs to lead 6-3 and the Filipino controlled the match on the whole from there onwards.
His three-rack buffer would soon be extended to a seemingly unassailable seven racks, with Chua producing an impressive jump-bank on the three ball, which guided the five ball into the corner pocket to lead 11-4.
Nevertheless, Van Boening remained resilient and utilised a Chua push-out to perfection. He cleared the table before producing back-to-back break and runs to reduce the arrears to 11-8, notably executing a tremendous long two ball with the cue ball hanging over the corner pocket.
A tricky positional error would subsequently bring Van Boening’s valiant comeback to a halt nonetheless, and Chua was in a hurry to seal the deal, fully capitalising on his opponent’s mistake before breaking and running to prevail.
Chua had defeated Duong Quoc Hoang 11-5 in the semi-finals, with Duong having ousted world number one Fedor Gorst two rounds earlier, and beat Wiktor Zielinski and Max Lechner in the quarter-finals and last 16 respectively.
American youngster Payne McBride and Vietnam’s Le Quang Trung provided Chua his sternest tests in 9-7 wins, while the Filipino also got the better of Swedish teenager Walter Laikre and Finland’s Jani Siekkinen.
Recent Florida Open champion Aloysius Yapp was beaten in the last 16 by Vietnam’s Luong Duc Thien, while Francisco Sanchez Ruiz exited a round earlier following a hill-hill defeat at the hands of Kuo Po-Cheng.
