Indonesian teenage sensation Albert Januarta defeated Bernie Regalario 13-8 to seal the Zen & Yuan 8 Open glory in Shanghai, China, becoming the youngest ever winner on the World Nineball Tour.
Januarta landed his maiden WNT ranking accolade at the tender age of 17 and scooped the $20,000 champion’s cheque, also becoming Indonesia’s first ever success story on the tour.
A two-time junior champion on the circuit, Januarta established a 9-4 advantage in the final and that proved unassailable, despite Regalario managing to win four of the next five racks.
Januarta had notably battled through a hill-hill affair against Kuo Hsuan-Wei to qualify for the single elimination phase, before then beating Vietnam’s Nguyen Van Huynh and Harry Vergara of the Philippines to reach the quarter-finals.
There, he beat Ruslan Chinakhov 10-8 in a closely-contested match, prior to an 11-8 victory over fellow teenage phenom Felix Vogel, who had beaten the likes of Chang Yu-Lung and Kuo Po-Cheng on his way to the semi-finals.
Regalario, meanwhile, was beaten in the double elimination phase by Hsieh Chia-Chen but he exacted revenge on that loss in the last 32, before beating the Taiwanese trio of Lu Hui-Chan, Lin Ta-Li and defending champion Ko Pin-Yi to reach a second ranking final.
Elsewhere, newly-crowned US Open champion Aloysius Yapp and UK Open runner-up Jonas Souto Comino both endured 10-9 defeats in the last 32 at the hands of Kuo Po-Cheng and Harry Vergara respectively.
The World Nineball Tour now takes a month-long break before heading to Vietnam for the Peri Open and the Hanoi Open, while players remain in Asia for the upcoming China Open and World 10-Ball Championship.
