Darren Appleton is Crowned World Pool Masters Champion in Las Vegas

By NYC Grind Contributing Writer, Geoff Conway

Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm in the TV Arena at the Riviera Hotel Convention Center, we saw the start of the remaining three quarter final matches of The PartyPoker.com  World Pool Masters 9-Ball Championships, that would contain the eventual winner of this prestigious event that would yield the winner the grand prize of $20,000.

With top international names like Mika Immonen, Shane Van Boening, Nick van den Berg, Dennis Orcullo, and Ralf Souquet, any one of these phenomenal players could have made it to the top on any given day.  However, it was World 10-Ball Champion, Darren Appleton that would make the grade yesterday…

Here is the breakdown of the road to the finals for these world-class players… plus make sure to check out our photo gallery from this event.

QUARTER FINAL PAIRINGS

Shane Van Boening     8

Tony Drago                5

Ralf Souquet                 7

Darren Appleton         8

Dennis Orcollo           4

Mika Immonen           8

We already knew the winner of the first quarter final pairing that was played late on Saturday night, when Amsterdam-based Nick van den Berg beat Johnny Archer.

In the match between Shane Van Boening and Tony Drago, the score was tied at 4-4, when Tony had a pretty easy safe to execute, but over hit it, which left Shane with an easy run out. This was the momentum change in the match, and saw Shane forge ahead to a score line of 8-5. Tony felt that he played better today than when he beat Niels Feijen on Saturday, but it was not to be his day.

The next match up had the in form Ralf Souquet matched up against the 2008 World 10 Ball Champion Darren Appleton. This match looked on paper as if it would favor Ralf, but I guess Darren never got the memo, because Darren knuckled down and soon pulled himself back from being 3-0 down.

Darren levelled the score at 3-3, then Ralf would go in front and Darren would pull it back to level again. This was the format throughout the match until Darren pulled it back to 7-7. Darren had the honor breaking and makes the six ball on the break, and then plays a great safe behind the seven to leave Ralf snookered.

Ralf kicks at the one ball and makes the hit, but leaves Darren a shot. Darren makes the one ball but accidently moves the two ball away from infront of the side pocket. He tries a hard angle cut down town and misses leaving  Ralf no shot.  Ralf jumps and leaves Darren a hard shot. Darren elects to play what would actually be the winning shot so to speak, when he plays a beautiful safe leaving the cue ball almost locked behind the nine ball on the end rail.

Ralf could not magic up a shot to make the hit, leaving Darren ball in hand to play a fairly easy three ball combo on the nine into the bottom corner pocket.

…

Next up we had Dennis Orcullo against 2008 US Open 9 Ball Champion Mika Immonen. Unfortunately, this was not to be Mr. Orcollo’s day, as he just could not make it happen when he had the chances to take control of the table. Mika quickly had the score in his favor at 3-0, and Dennis always seemed to have a long difficult shot to establish the start of a run out when it was his turn at the table.

These missed shots allowed Mika to mop up the rest of the balls, and he was soon the winner of this match with the score at 8-4. Mika looked very confident in this match, and was taking little time over the shots when executing some great run outs.

SEMI FINALS PAIRINGS

Nick Van den Berg vs

Shane Van Boening

Darren Appleton vs

Mika Immonen

Nick van den Berg of the Netherlands continued his fine play, and did not take long to defeat Shane Van Boening of the USA by a score line of 8-2. Nick’s play could only be described as “ruthless” in this match… and when Shane did get to the table he made some uncharacteristic mistakes, and just couldn’t get started.  Nick who had looked sharp all weekend, did not disappoint his European fans with this win.

Darren Appleton, who was improving as the tournament went on, and was perhaps the surprise winner in this match against Mika, when one considers the masterful play we had seen from the Iceman in his previous matches. However, Darren played nearly perfectly, and after the match was tied 3-3, he dominated the rest of the set to win 8-6.

 
FINALISTS

This years finalists, who had fought through three grueling matches to get to the pinnacle of this Match Room Sports superbly-run event, were Darren Appleton, World 10 Ball Champion from England, and Nick van den Berg from the Netherlands. With Europe again supplying the final pairing, this does not bode well for the upcoming Mosconi Cup in August. 

Darren soon had this match by the scruff of its neck, when he quickly stretched out a lead of 4-1. Nick managed a rally of sorts getting as close as 5-3 before Darren put it into overdrive to take the title down with a score 8-4.

Darren really did not give many openings to Nick, and the key of this match for Darren was getting to grips with his break, and slowing down the break so as he made the one ball into the left hand side pocket with regularity. He did however, make a foul break a couple of times by not getting three balls past the center pockets.

When this happened, play was awarded to the other player, but from where the cue ball ended up, and not ball in hand. As a matter of interest on the couple of times when this procedure happened it did not give any advantage to the player who was awarded the shot. 

There is no doubt in my mind that Darren really showed us his talent for taking down big events, and he just got better as the weekend progressed. I must also point out that Darren was coming of a significant loss to Dennis Hatch last week in the $40,000 winner take all Action Report Challenge Match held at Pool Sharks Pool Room in Las Vegas.

Kudos to Darren for putting this behind him and fighting his way through the field of world class players that stood between him and first place prize of $20,000.

Darren Appleton with Luke Riches of Matchroom Sports and Rob Sheets of Brunswick Billiards

As I said in my last report, this event is the cream of the crop, and other big events should take a long look at the professionalism that makes this event so successful and unique.

Well done to everybody involved in putting on this event, and well done Darren “Dynamite” Appleton, who is now the new World Pool Masters Champion.
- Geoff Conway  “Pool Junkie”

Click Here to Check Out the World Pool Masters Photo Gallery…

 

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Written by JT · Filed Under 360º Vegas Pool Coverage 2010, The Latest