Bustamante and Drago Will Meet in Predator Finals
Predator 10-Ball Championship / Las Vegas, NV
by InsidePOOL Staff
The two semifinal matches of the Predator 10-Ball Championship are in the books, with Tony “Tornado” Drago and Francisco Bustamante set to meet in the finals at 6 p.m. PST.
Drago, a former World Pool Masters winner and a rookie player on the Mosconi Cup in 2007, bided his time in his match against Sweden’s Marcus Chamat. In fact, Chamat held the early lead of 5-2 before Drago made his move. Drago narrowed the gap to one rack by taking advantage of a dry break and then a faulty safety by Chamat, and he drew even with a break and run. “Napoleon” took the next two, but Drago counter-attacked to make it 7 apiece, and then he took the lead for the first time in the set with a 3-10 combo.
Another break and run nudged the Maltese one game closer. A safety battle over the 1 ball saw Chamat try for a bank and miss; on fire now, Drago sped through the rack at his usual rapid clip to reach the hill. He came up dry on his final break, but Chamat left him a shot on the 1 ball after a failed safety attempt, and Drago buzzed through the rack to win 11-7.
View the Predator 10-Ball Championship image gallery (/gallery2/v/Pool+Tournaments/Predator-10-ball-championship/)
Bustamante met with former U.S. Open champ Jeremy Jones in the more lopsided second semifinal match. Jones took the first two racks, but he scratched on his next break and then committed two glaring errors to allow Bustamante to take a 3-2 lead. A quick 2-10 combo by the Filipino got him another step away from Jones, and in the next rack, several innings were exchanged over the 7 ball alone, with Bustamante getting that game as well. Some excellent defensive play followed, with the players splitting the next two games to make it 6-3. However, things seemed to go Bustamante’s way when he broke next and followed a road map to get out and then cleared the table after Jones missed an easy 1 ball.
The next two racks also went to “Django,” putting him on the hill 10-3. He came up empty on his break, and Jones cleared to put one more rack under his belt, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Jones made nothing on his break, and Bustamante played a strong safety on the 1 ball, hiding the cue behind the 3. When Jones fouled, Bustamante took ball in hand and took the simple way out, lining up the 1-10 combo in the side.
For live coverage of the 8th Annual Predator 10-Ball Championship, please visit Predator10ball.com, Kozoom.com, and InsidePOOLmag.com.