Joshua Filler came agonisingly close to sleeping through his Derby City Classic opener following a match time amendment in the small hours of Tuesday morning.
Filler, a two-time and defending champion in the Derby City Classic nineball division, won his first round match against fellow German Andre Schickling – the internet sensation known as Sharivari.
However, it was almost a disastrous situation for the former world champion, who was awoken to his match being moved to a time that was one-and-a-half hours earlier than it was initially scheduled for.
“I went to sleep at 1am after I saw at midnight that I’m scheduled to play our partner Sharivari at 11.30am in first round of the 9-ball,” Filler explained via the Killer Fillers Facebook page.
“I wake up at 10am, open the app with draw, schedule etc just to check lineups, get a notification saying ‘your match has been assigned now’. I got up and went straight to the table.
“I meanwhile reached out to Sharivari asking when that change happened, telling him I didn’t know and I’m on my way.
“He said no rush at all and told the ref I was on my way and all the ref had to say was ‘I don’t care, he’s on the clock. It’s a forfeit if not there in 15 mins. He’s probably just drinking coffee somewhere with Pia’.
“The app shows that the match time was put in at 1.30am. I’m not supposed to sleep, I guess.”
He later added: “I still made it to the match and won though… luckily. I come here because I love the Derby – no matter what. I just didn’t understand why you would change a match in the middle of the night.”
Filler became the first player to defend the nineball title in the Derby City Classic’s 27-year history last year, and the German could complete the three-peat this weekend in Louisville.
