Tuesday lunchtime, and the biggest result of the morning came from Quezon City. Moritz Neuhausen, last year's Mosconi Cup MVP, is out of the Philippines Open in the first round, beaten by a Filipino who has hardly played on the big stage. In Belfast, Mark Williams did what most of the top 16 haven't managed this week and got through.
Quezon City — Tipawan knocks out the world number six
Meynard Tipawan beat Moritz Neuhausen 10–6 at Gateway Mall (score per Absolute Pool). The World Nineball Tour called it "a huge upset" and said it wrecks the German's hopes of qualifying for the Mosconi Cup. This is the last ranking event before the cut-off, and it's single elimination, so there's no way back.
Neuhausen went unbeaten on his Mosconi Cup debut at Alexandra Palace last December and won the MVP award. In March he came from 7–2 down to beat Mario He 13–7 in the European Open final. Tipawan is a much smaller name. Inside Spin's records show a 17th-place finish at February's Carabao International Open, and not much else at this level.
Other first-day results, from the World Nineball Tour's posts:
- Thorsten Hohmann 10–5 Chezka Centeno (score per Absolute Pool): the two-time women's world 10-ball champion kept pace for a while. WNT said Hohmann "grew into" the match.
- Edwin Dela Cruz Gamas beat Alex Pagulayan: Gamas was 9–6 up in the clip WNT posted.
- Saldy Galliguez beat Lukas Fracasso-Verner: Galliguez was on the hill at 9–5 in the footage. WNT said it was good to see the American back after a horrific injury.
- Robbie Capito whitewashed Sowiset Namfon in under an hour.
- Johann Chua, Aloysius Yapp and Jayson Shaw all went through. In WNT's clips Chua was 9–1 up on Tony Piazza, Yapp 9–2 up on Raphael Dabreo and Shaw 9–1 up on Kelson Juan. WNT said Yapp "is not going to be happy with his performance". This is Chua's first WNT major since last October's Hanoi Open, per Absolute Pool.
We haven't printed final scores where we didn't see them. WNT's live scoring site needs a login. Japanese magazine CUE'S reported that Kenichi Uchigaki and Yuki Komiya are out, and Kuoki Sugiyama plays tomorrow. Round one is split over today and tomorrow (per Rack 9).
Belfast — Williams through, Chang out
Mark Williams beat Robbie Williams 4–2 in the 10am session (per snooker.org). WST says the 2017 champion is only the third top-16 player into round two, after Kyren Wilson and John Higgins. He's also the only one of the top four in the BetVictor Bonus race to win his first match, with £150,000 at stake. He plays Zhang Anda next.
Ryan Day beat Chang Bingyu 4–3 on the other table and plays Daniel Wells in the last 32. We couldn't find frame scores for either match.
Mark Allen and Jordan Brown play each other at 1pm. WST describes them as best friends off the table. Zhou Yuelong v Michael Holt is on at the same time.
Goyang — Ma Minh Cam goes out early
The PBA men's last 128 started at KINTEX after the opening ceremony. Ma Minh Cam, the first Vietnamese player to win a PBA title (per Kukinews), lost his first match 3–0 to Jung Hae-chang. The sets went 15–13, 15–13, 15–1 (per Infoarounds, from the official results). Jung averaged 2.647.
- Oh Tae-jun 3–0 Seon Ji-hoon
- Montes 3–1 Han Ji-seung
- Joo Si-yoon 3–0 Yoon Yong-je, also averaging 2.647
The LPBA last 32 is also on. Kim Ga-young played Hwang Min-ji and Jung Su-bin played Park Ga-eun this morning UK time, but we couldn't find either result.
Manila — Parica plans a P1 million tournament
Jose "Amang" Parica, 77, told today's Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum that the first Amang Parica Cup will be held in Manila in February 2027 (per Philstar). "We are looking at P1 million for first prize," he said. It will be open to everyone, with a nationwide qualifying event and a 128-player main draw. Parica says three private backers are helping with the prize money. He also said he'd be open to an exhibition against Efren Reyes or Manny Pacquiao. Manila Bulletin's headline says he rates Shane Van Boening above Reyes.
Elsewhere
- Landywood: World Billiards is now streaming two tables on its YouTube channel. Still no official scores online, and the final is on Thursday.
- Doha: day two of the Qatar World Cup 10-Ball qualifiers. The Qatar federation has posted highlights, but still no results.
Coming up / where to watch
- WPA Blackball World Championships: men's doubles starts at 6pm at the Thistle London Heathrow. According to CueScore's entry list, the 56 pairs come from 13 countries: England has 12, Malta and Australia six each, and South Africa five. There are also pairs from Morocco, Ireland, Mauritius, India, Wales, France, Cyprus, Singapore and Madagascar. The draw still hadn't been made when we checked at lunchtime.
- Northern Ireland Open: Allen v Brown and Zhou v Holt at 1pm. Then Zhao Xintong v Gao Yang and Noppon v Thanawat, followed by five last-32 matches from 7pm, including Kyren Wilson v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. It's on TNT Sports, Eurosport, HBO Max and WST Play.
- Goyang: Daniel Sánchez v Park Nam-soo and Kang Dong-gung v Moon Ho-beom both start at 3pm UK time.
- Philippines Open: play runs until about 2pm UK today and starts again at 5am tomorrow. It's on WNT TV, with table four free on the Matchroom Pool YouTube channel, per Absolute Pool.
Feature image: “Thorsten Hohmann” by Sebastian Voigt, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 3.0.
