Pat Fleming’s International Open gets underway in a Florida East Coast ‘play’ ground

Tournament staff: Ed Liddawi, Pat Fleming and Ken Shuman

First round of 9-Ball Open, and SemiPro 9-Ball Open yields advancement of ‘likely suspects’

This week (Nov. 18-26), pool players from all over the world (26 countries and the US of A) are gathering for Pat Fleming’s 6^th Annual International Open, being hosted, for the first time, here in St. Augustine, FL at the World Golf Village Renaissance Resort; the first pool tournament to be hosted by the resort. Its selection as the site for the 2024 International Open came about because the events outgrew their previous host, which, since 2021, had been the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel in Norfolk, VA.

“The location gives us twice the space,” Fleming wrote in a news release published in the St. Augustine Record last week. “Thirty-two tables, including eight, four-table miniature arenas, will get spectators close to the action.”

There are, in total, 56 pool tables. There are 33 in the main ballroom, including the AccuStats Arena table, which will be switched out to accommodate a 10-ft. table for the Big Foot 10-Ball challenge. In addition, there are 20, 7 ft. ‘barbox’ tables in a separate room and a single 9 ft. and single 7 ft. table in a space reserved for ‘action.’

“We’ve also expanded our playing options, adding the International 9-Ball Semi-Pro Open and the International Straight Pool Open (previously known as Peter Burrows’ American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship),” he added. “There’s something for everyone.”

Since Fleming wrote of the additions, there have been two others added; an International Split Open tournament (two fields of FargoRated competitors) and a Natural Born Women’s 9-Ball Tournament.

For all of its 45,000 sq. ft. of space, the large ballroom set aside for the tournaments at the resort is somehow cozier than its ‘smaller footprint’ predecessor in Norfolk, VA. In addition to its 32 pool tables, 16 situated to either side of the AccuStats arena for featured matches, there is a ‘gathering space’ between its two sides, just outside the arena, with 10-ft. round tables, where folks either not playing or spectating can sit down, chat and avail themselves of some food options, also available in the space. Lighting sconces at the perimeter of the room, while having very little to do with the main or table lighting, lend the atmosphere a welcoming, kind of ‘home feel’ to the place. The area surrounding the 32, general-play tables is more user-friendly than the spaces in Norfolk, which kept spectators at a distance, surrounding the entire area at once. Here, spectator chairs surround each group of four tables, while the AccuStats Arena has the expected, tiered viewing stands, from which spectators can view the featured matches.

The resort’s Golf Village is home to two, 18-hole golf courses; the King & Bear, designed by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and the Slammer & Squire, designed by Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen. It is also home to the first PGA Golf Academy, which opened in 2000.  Private and/or ‘playing’ lessons (9- or 18-holes) are available for those who may wish to supplement their play at one ‘put the ball into a hole’ game with another. 

Host city offers visitors a wide variety of things to see and do, if and when time allows

If you’d been born in the year that the Nińa, Pinta and Santa Maria, with Chris Columbus heading up the expedition, first started bumping into the Bahamas, you’d have been 73 when Florida’s first (Spanish) governor, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, founded St. Augustine in 1565. It’s the oldest, continuously inhabited, European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States (San Juan, Puerto Rico, is an older, just not-contiguous city, by 44 years). If you’re here now, or planning to come for any of the International Open festivities, you can visit the Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States, constructed between 1672 and 1695; a raid by an English privateer set construction of the original wooden fort back a few years.

Located about 40 miles south of downtown Jacksonville in the northeast corner of Florida’s east coast, St. Augustine is part of that city’s ‘Metropolitan Statistical Area’ and as of 2020, had a population of just over 14,000. At any given moment, in any given tourist season, you might run into twice that many people wandering the streets, visiting sites and shopping. Among the various things you might encounter visiting the city (once you’ve visited the fort) include the oldest Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum, the oldest wooden schoolhouse, the oldest wax museum, the oldest alligator farm, and an archaeological park, said to be the site where Ponce de Leon landed in search of the Fountain of Youth. Oh, and ghosts, of course. Any port city that goes back a few centuries is usually replete with ghost tales, sightings and sites, many of them associated with pirates who met their makers while engaged in their normal skullduggery. See the “Secrets of St. Augustine Ghost Tours” site for further information. 

Schedule, formatting and early reporting on events, already in progress

The $75,000-added International 9-Ball Open (with 128 entrants) and the $10,000-added International 9-Ball Semi-Pro Open (189 entrants) are already underway and will continue through until Friday. Both will begin with double-elimination brackets until the field is down to 16 (eight from each side of the bracket), at which point the tournaments will be single elimination through to the finals.

On Wednesday, the event will host the best 16 boys and 8 girls for the International Junior Championship. That event will continue through to Friday, as well.

On Friday, Nov. 22, Jersey Girl Billiards will begin their International Expo ‘Split Bracket’ event, along with the Natural Born Women’s 9-Ball Tournament, scheduled to continue through to Mon., Nov. 25. 

On Saturday, Nov. 23, the $4,000-added Big Foot Invitational 10-Ball tournament (8 entrants) will get underway, hosting “8 elite professional players” in a single-elimination tournament that will continue until Tues., Nov. 26. At the same time, the $30,000-added International Straight Pool Open (as of today, with 42 entrants) will get rolling in a Round Robin format, which will eventually advance 16 players (x number of players from y ‘round robin’ fields with z number of players, dependent on total entrants of between 48-64 players). It, too, will continue through Tues., Nov. 26.

Interested in watching from afar, via Pay-Per-View? Register and login at https://digitalpool.net/accustats/?coupon=INTLOPEN. Follow all of the brackets at Digital Pool.

We will be reporting from the International Open daily. Reports on the progress of events for each day will be posted the next day, accompanied by photos from Erwin Dionisio.

News from the opening rounds and a look ahead at what’s to come.

The 9-Ball Open and Semi-Pro 9-Ball Open each held 96 matches on Day One; a single round of play for the Semi-Pro and two rounds of the Open. Depending on one’s perspective on the varied matches, there were no major upsets (‘it ain’t over ‘til it’s over), though there was a surprising one. All 10 of the players who’ll be competing in the Mosconi Cup after Thanksgiving in Orlando, FL were competing in the Open event and all but one of them advanced to a third winners’ side round, scheduled to get underway later today (Tuesday).

Fedor Gorst, Shane Van Boening, Tyler Styer and Billy Thorpe from Team USA advanced to that third round, while the US captain, Sky Woodward, lost his second-round match to Kledio Kaci 10-1. All five members of Team Europe – Jayson Shaw, Eklent Kaci, David Alcaide, Mickey Krause and Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz won their first two opening rounds.

Also advancing to round three was Lee Vann Corteza, who will face Fedor Gorst in one of the last of today’s matches. Others to advance were Wiktor Zielinski, Josh Filler, John Morra, Moritz Neuhausen, Mario He, Neils Feijen and recent-junior-competitor, Joey Tate, who will, as a result, square off against Jayson Shaw in one of this evening’s matches. Canada’s Martin Daigle is advancing (to a match against Eklent Kaci this evening) after defeating Thorsten Hohmann.

The Semi-Pro Open’s opening round took up all of Day One, with 96 competitors advancing to Day Two (today), which, in the beginning, is all about the loss side. That will change to Round Three, winners’ side action this evening. You can keep up with matches and overall progress by logging onto digitalpool.com, where you’ll find separate brackets for the two events and match schedules associated with your favorite competitors

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