94 Players at Bigwigs Billiards

94 Players at Bigwigs Billiards
The Canadian 9-Ball Tour began the season this weekend at Bigwigs Billiards in Newmarket, Ontario. The play list includes many champions and includes Ralf Souquet, Alex Pagulayan, Marcus Chamat, Tyler Edey, Alain Martel, Brady Golllan, Erik Hjorliefson, and last year’s tour champion Edwin Montal. Mosconi Cup regulars Souquet and Chamat found the going tough as they both hit the one-loss side of the brackets early when Souquet fell to sharpsooter Jason Klatt 9-8 and Chamat could find no daylight as he collapsed 9-2 before the guns of Alex Pagulayan.
With the $10,000 in added money at each stop this year everyone is playing in top spirits and that leads to upsets. Erik Hjorliefson lost his second match 9-7 to Louis Fazekas and the third round found Alain Martel moving left when John Jorgenson knocked him down 9-8. Then two of the tournament favorites were turned out by Canadian hot hands. Marcus Chamat was shown the exit by Elio D’Andrea 9-8 and Ralf Souquet joined him outside looking in when Vito Puopolo took him out 9-7. To be fair, both Souquet and Chamat were still suffering jet lag from their long flight in from Europe, but the skills of Canadian players are becoming more evident with each passing year.
Sunday will find sixteen players still alive, eight of whom have not as yet tasted defeat. Those matchups will feature Tyler Edey against Dan Doerner, Jason Klatt against Justin Kluznik, Alain Lessard against Alex Pagulayan and Jeff White against Eric Hildebrand.
The Canadian 9-Ball Tour is sponsored by Chapters-Indigo Bookstores, Cineplex Entertainment, Canada Bowling and Billiards, Stan James Bookmakers, Simonis Cloth and Aramith Billiard Balls.