The final six competitors, led by the Derby City Classic winner Joshua Filler, were confirmed on Saturday evening as four players were eliminated from Premier League Pool, held at US 1 Billiards, West Haven, Connecticut.
Joshua Filler, Ko Pin-Yi, Shane Van Boening, Ko Ping-Chung, Francisco Sanchez Ruiz and Fedor Gorst will return to action on Monday in a battle to make the evening’s four-man race-to-seven play-offs. Wiktor Zielinski, Skyler Woodward, Mario He and Albin Ouschan were eliminated on Sunday and will exit the competition.
Filler won six of his nine matches against the top ten, a record bettered only by the Ko Brothers and world number one Francisco Sanchez Ruiz over the weekend. World Pool Master Ko Ping-Chung is level with Filler at the top of the table on 17 wins from 24 matches, with 2018 world champion Filler ahead of the Chinese Taipei star by virtue of racks difference.
The duo are supported by five-time US Open winner Shane van Boening and reigning US Open champion Ko Ping-Chung on 16 points in third and fourth respectively. Van Boening headed into the weekend in red-hot form, dropping just two matches across the opening five days of play. However, the South Dakota Kid’s advantage would take a huge dent as he slipped to one win in seven, falling to Filler and Ko Ping-Chung among six defeats from his nine matches.
Ping-Chung holds the same record as older brother Pin-Yi, with seven wins from nine matches. Losing to Skyler Woodward in their final Stage Two match on Table One, he would also lose out to Pin-Yi in a reverse of the Stage One result between the brothers, levelling the match record at one each across the week.
Defending champion Francisco Sanchez Ruiz confirmed his spot in the final six with two matches to spare. The Spaniard will begin Monday’s play in fifth place after recovering from ninth place to just two points behind the leaders, crucially running up his Rack Difference metric in the process.
The battle for sixth place went down to the wire, with Woodward, Fedor Gorst and Wiktor Zielinski all in contention for a spot in Stage Three’s action. Zielinski was in pole position heading into the weekend, carrying a dangerous string of form throughout the week after lifting the McDermott Classic World Nineball Tour Ranking Event last Sunday in Boston, Massachusetts. Despite taking a 10-5 record into the round, just two wins across the two days, fatefully losing to both competing men alongside him, would see him slip out of contention.
The final spot was decided between countrymen Gorst and Woodward, who successfully claimed a point together at last December’s Mosconi Cup for Team USA. Gorst would get the advantage of a 5-2 win over Woodward early on Sunday, keeping a point’s gap between the pairing. Despite a loss to Ko Pin-Yi, wins over Albin Ouschan and Shane Van Boening would be enough to seal the final spot in the group.
Ouschan would be sent home alongside Austrian partner Mario He in tenth and ninth respectively, with Zielinski in eighth and Woodward finishing seventh for the second consecutive year.
Premier League Pool returns for the final day of action on Monday, 25 March from 11am EST. Each of the final six will play each other in a race-to-five, setting up a final four play-off in race-to-seven action. Two semi-finals will determine the final, with the winner set to take home $20,000.
Press Release from Adam Clapham
