Pool Cue News and Review

Well, it seems that the trend of players losing sponsorships is continuing. Most of us heard about this in Charlotte, but Gabe Owen has made it publicly known that he and Mueller’s are done. Gabe posted a thread today on the old AZ Billiards Forum, letting everyone know that he’s single and looking.

This ain’t good. Gabe and Allison were with Meuller’s and the APA for as long as I can remember. The Allison thing is probably a little different, as the rumor is that her asking price was simply too high for the APA, but its a bad trend nonetheless. As Mrs. Lovett said, “Times is hard”.

Well, that doesn’t help too much since the finals pitted Allison Fisher against Kelly Fisher, but you know how I like to be all witty and stuff. Here’s how the last day of the tournament went down.

In the first match, Kelly played Sarah Ellerby in a hotly contested semifinal. It was neck and neck through the 10th rack with the two tied up at 5-5 when Kelly finally broke free to win the match 7-5. On the other side, Allison had a fairly easy time with longtime rival Karen Corr, jumping to a 5-2 lead and winning the match 7-4.

In the finals, it was close through the first nine racks with Kelly and Allison trading the lead. After taking the ninth rack though, it was all Allison Fisher who took down her second win in three tournaments. Damn is she tough!

If you’re looking for more details, I really recommend you hit the WPBA website and check out some of the highlight PDFs from Anne Craig. She does a much better job than I do reporting on this stuff and really has a passion for writing about the game and takes lots of great pictures of the action.

That’s all for now. Congrats to Allison on the win and look for the matches to show up on ESPN in late July or early August.

Lots of action to report on.  After getting shown up in the Gen Pool event earlier this month, it looks like the WPBA vets came out to play.  Our girl Sarah Rousey lost a heartbreaker to Ga Young Kim, coming from behind to tie it up at 7-7 and then dropping the last two racks.  Great tournament for my favorite little pixie though.

In other action, Allison took down Tiffany 9-5 and Brit-Brit eeked out a win against Megan Minerich (great tourney Megan!) 9-8 to set up the rematch from the GP semis.  This time, Allison took Anna K. to the woodshed and just drilled her 9-1 to set up yet another matchup with Karen Corr, who took down J-Thug in the quarters 9-5.

On the bottom half of the bracket, defending champ Xiaoting Pan lost to Kelly Fisher 9-8, putting Fisher 2.0 into the semis.  The big surprise though came in the last bracket cluster.  After squeaking by Sarah, Ga Young Kim was knocked out of the tournament by Monica Webb 9-7, setting up a quarterfinal match of Monica Webb v. Sarah Ellerby, who hasn’t been seen since she showed off her rockin’ new bod in Pool & Billiards Magazine.  Ellerby proceeds to take down Monica 9-7 to put her in the semis and the TV round against Fisher 2.0.  Huge congrats to Sarah Ellerby!  By the way, if you want to know how she dropped the lbs, there’s a great feature article about her at RunnersWorld.com.

So there you have it.  Your Final Four is Allison Fisher v. Karen Corr and Kelly Fisher v. Sarah Ellerby.

First off, congrats to Sarah Rousey for making it to the redraw. Sarah took out Kim Shaw 9-7 and is rewarded with a matchup against defending champ and reigning Gen Pool champ Xiaoting Pan. Well done you foxy thang!

Lots of new names in the redraw and a couple big names that got bounced. Jasmin got bounced by Monica Webb, continuing her streak of extremely spotty play. Megan Minerich(!!) got by Gerda 9-6, Yu Ram Cha downed Helena Thornfeldt by the same score and Tiffany Nelson took down Debbie Schjodt 9-4.

Here’s how the matches are going to play out:

Allison Fisher v. Tiffany Nelson
Brit-Brit v. Megan Minerich

Jeanette Lee v. Yu Ram Cha
Karen Corr v. Dawn Hopkins

Xiaoting Pan v. Sarah Rousey
Kelly Fisher v. Vivian Villareal

Sarah Ellerby v. Jennifer Chen
Ga Young Kim v. Monica Webb

Once again Allison and Karen have been drawn into the same bracket, so the WPBA has spared us of any chance of yet another Fisher v. Corr finals. Assuming everything goes according to plan, we should see Allison get a chance to avenge her loss at the Gen Pool event to the little gum snapper. Stay tuned for more updates.

Day Two - The Veterans Strike Back

Half of the Round of 16 is set and it looks like the old guard really stepped up their game.  As expected, Allison and Karen are in.  Ga Young and Xiaoting are in as well, as is Brit-Brit, who scored a 9-4 drubbing of Dawn Hopkins.  Kelly Fisher absolutely drilled Debbie Schjodt 9-0 putting her into the next round, but the biggest surprise in my book is the play of J-Thug, who took down Gerda 9-5 and grabbed a slot in the Sweet 16.  Sarah Ellerby, who had probably the easiest route to the round of 16, took down Jennifer Chen (I guess Chen got her debts to the mafia paid off) 9-3.

As for my favorites, Sarah Rousey lost a 9-8 heartbreaker to Ga Young Kim and will play Kim Shaw this afternoon.  Thin Lizzy didn’t fare quite as well.  After losing to Dawn Hopkins, she took down The Mad Hatter but then lost to Tiffany Nelson 9-4.  Tiffany will play Debbie Schjodt today for one of the 8 remaining spots in the round of 16.

I’ll have more updates later today.  Don’t forget that if you want to see some of the WPBA ladies in action, the San Diego Classic is on The Deuce today and on ESPN tomorrow!

You know why I love the WPBA.  Sure, I have mad crushes on a bunch of the players, but that’s not the real reason.  The real reason I dig the WPBA is because they do things like the Pro-Am pictured above taken by the adorable Anne Craig.  Right in the middle of a tournament, they take the time to hang with fans, play pool and have fun.  When was the last time you saw a top men’s player kickin’ it with some bangers like how Ga Young Kim is doing?

Anyway, enough of that… on to the results.  A few surprises, but first I’m going over my favorites.  Liz Ford got dropped to the one loss side by WPBA vet Dawn Hopkins.  Meanwhile, little Sarah Rousey is rolling, beating Yu Ram Cha, who of course bounced Jasmin Ouschan in the first round.  Next up for Sarah though is the steamroller otherwise known as Ga Young Kim.

Lots of other well known names are still on the winner’s side.  Allison (of course), Karen Corr, Brit-Brit, Kelly Fisher and defending champ Xiaoting Pan.  One of the more interesting surprises is to see J-Thug playing well as she trounced Kim White 9-3.

A couple of very interesting matches coming up today.  Xiaoting Pan goes up against Monica Webb which could go either way.  The one I’m interested in though is FLA chica Debbie Schjodt going up against Kelly Fisher.  Debbie’s been showing some nice improvement in her game but still needs that breakthrough win.

More later since there are a ton of matches on the one loss side going off this morning/afternoon.

Jasmin Ouschan gets kicked to the losers bracket in the first round by Yu Ram Cha.  Not to take anything away from Yu Ram Cha’s hill/hill victory, but damn.  Jasmin’s game has really taken a couple steps backwards this season.

No other upsets so far, but two of my favorite WPBA hotties are moving to the second round.  Sarah Rousey who skipped the GP event, rolled to a 9-3 win over for Michelle Monk and Liz Ford scraped out a 9-8 win over Liz Taylor.  Other than the Jasmin loss, everyone you’d expect to move to the second round did.