Joshua Filler battled back from three racks behind to defeat Eklent Kaci 13-11 and secure his fifth World Nineball Tour ranking title at the inaugural Knight Shot Dubai Open in the United Arab Emirates.
Filler, who was crowned the Derby City Classic champion in January, doubled his WNT title tally for the year, overturning a 10-7 deficit in the finals to clinch the $15,000 top prize at Jayson Shaw’s Billiard Lounge in Dubai.
Prior to his strenuous victory over recent World Pool Championship runner-up Kaci in the title decider, Filler emphatically defeated Johann Chua 11-3 in the semi-finals, having beaten Mosconi Cup teammate Jayson Shaw 11-8 in the quarter-finals.
Filler had also recorded a hill-hill victory over Max Lechner and overcame both UK Open champion Robbie Capito and Billy Thorpe during an eventually successful campaign in the Middle East.
World number three Kaci, meanwhile, denied Denmark’s Mickey Krause 11-5 at the penultimate hurdle, having beaten the likes of recent UK Open semi-finalist Pijus Labutis, Jonas Souto Comino and John Morra.
Elsewhere, it was an unwanted first outing as world number one for Fedor Gorst as the world champion suffered two defeats from three matches. Having beaten Kuwait’s Ahmed Al-Dulaimi 9-7 in his opener, Gorst endured back-to-back 9-2 defeats against Kledio Kaci and Robbie Capito.
In addition, Wiktor Zielinski, Carlo Biado and Mario He were unable to qualify for the single elimination phase, while Shane van Boening was narrowly beaten in a 10-9 epic against Sanjin Pehlivanovic in the last 16.
The World Nineball Tour returns to Europe next weekend following its two-week stint in the Middle East as the annual Bucharest Open takes place in the Romanian capital.
