Pool Cue News and Review

Over the weekend, Predator presented the first Jim Murnak Women’s Open, which drew some very familiar names including Emily “Yummy” Duddy, Caroline Pao and one of my favorite WPBAers, the always foxy Liz Ford.  So the newsworthy thing here is that Liz and Iris Ranola decided to call it a tie rather than play out the match to determine the winner and split the title.

Now you all know how much I dig Liz Ford and really I don’t blame her or Iris for calling it considering how late in the evening it was, but the reality is that this sort of thinig should not have been allowed.  In pro matches, you don’t shake hands and call it a tie, especially in the championships.  Sure, we’re not talking about big money here, but that’s not the point.  Could you imagine Nadal and Federer saying “let’s just split the title”?

There have been rumblings about this sort of thing happening for years, either when it is done officially as Liz and Iris did or with backroom private deals where the two finalists agree to split the winnings regardless of who actually wins the final match.  The promoter of this event should have either told the players to play out the final match or if they were both too tired, to play it the next morning.  Sharing a title simply shouldn’t be an option.  If pool ever wants to be taken seriously as a professional sport, a good first step would be playing out the championship matches.