SVB downs Atencio in finals, goes undefeated (again) to defend US Open 10-Ball title

Shane Van Boening

$10-K added, US Open 8-Ball Championships is under way at Griff’s in Las Vegas

In a highly-entertaining, tight race to 13, Shane Van Boening and Jesus Atencio battled it out in the finals of the $15,000-added US Open 10-Ball Championships last night (Tues., March 4) at Griff’s in Las Vegas. Van Boening went undefeated, successfully defending the title he claimed last year. For those interested in the overall narrative of this event, detailing how Van Boening and Atencio ended up in the finals, you can find a prequel to this report on our front page (“Van Boening/Thorpe and Atencio/De Luna set to square off in US Open 10-Ball semifinal”).

Prior to the final, the two had engaged in the event semifinals, in which Van Boening eliminated Thorpe 11-7, while Atencio was busy defeating Jeffrey De Luna 11-8. In races to 11, the average number of racks-against in the 14 single-elimination matches prior to the finals was 8. None of them went double hill, though six of them finished at 11-9.

As one might safely expect, the finals of the event, demonstrated all of the pool ‘magic’ one might expect from its two competitors. Great shot-making, position play and as usual, the appearance, on a couple of occasions, of Lady Luck (and sibling, Miss Bad Luck). But it was not without its. . . oddities.

Half of the games played (6 of 12), halfway through the match when they were tied at 6-6, were won off of an opponent’s break. There would be only one game won off of an opponent’s break in the second half. Atencio got that statistical ball rolling when he opened the scoring off SVB’s break. He would regain a game lead only twice more; at 5-4 and three racks later, at 6-5, both, also, off of SVB’s break. 

The longest run of the 23-game match was recorded once, by both of them. Atencio recorded his ‘three-fer’ when he was down by two (4-2) and advanced to take a lead at 5-4. The next run of three put Van Boening on the hill at 12-10.

And speaking of ‘oddities,’ Shane Van Boening gave Atencio ball in hand when he miscued, shooting at the 1-ball in rack #14. This allowed Atencio to tie the match at 7-7. It was the sixth tie of eight in the match. After the seventh tie at 8-8, Atencio made a terrific, table-length bank shot at the 1-ball and watched as the cue ball nestled itself up-tight against the 3-ball, with the 2-ball nestled in on the other side of it. The ‘oddity’ of this was an uncharacteristic reaction from Van Boening, who is generally one of those individuals you might find pictured next to the definition of ‘stoic.’ A stream-camera caught him sitting on the sideline after Atencio’s shot, making eye contact with someone off-camera. With a laugh, he used two fingers to wipe imaginary sweat from his brow.

So, back and forth it went, to a 9-9 tie, with stream commentators and ‘chat’ participants hoping for a double hill finish. Van Boening chalked up an unremarkable 19^th game to take the lead, at which point, Atencio stepped to the table and recorded the event’s first dry break, which eventually gave Van Boening a two-rack lead at 11-9.

On Van Boening’s subsequent break, he dropped four balls and got the rest of them into their holes, reaching the hill, ahead by three at 12-9. On his subsequent break, Atencio recorded his and the match’s second dry break. In something of a short ‘comedy of errors’ however, he recovered to win his 10^th (and final) game. Van Boening was snookered right out of the gate and had to execute the match’s first ‘push.’ Later, Atencio would scratch, turning the table back over to Van Boening, who would make an unforced error shooting at the 4-ball, that allowed Atencio to finish.

At 12-10, Van Boening opened the match’s last game by dropping three on the break and then, making a three-ball combination that had a way of moving the remaining balls into a clear, ‘connect the dots’ situation and the cue ball in perfect position for him to exploit it. And he did, closing out the rack and claiming his second straight US Open 10-Ball Championship title.

The US Open 8-Ball Championships got underway at 3 p.m. today (Wed., EDT) and it is just possible that Van Boening and Atencio will get a second shot at each other. The way the double-elimination bracket (throughout) has been drawn for the $10,000-added tournament, their first opportunity will occur in the battle for the hot seat. The 35 entrants were slotted into a 64-entrant bracket, making for only three matches in the opening round. One of them was a good one, between “The Lion” (Alex Pagulayan) and Lee Vann Corteza; won by Pagulayan 8-4. The other two are still on-going.

Three second-round matches have been completed with Ruslan Chinakhov shutting out Rick Funk, Mark Estiola downing Payne McBride 8-1 and Marc Vidal Claramunt sending 15-year-old Savannah Easton to the loss side 8-2. That victory was by way of avenging a previous loss to her in the opening round of the 10-Ball Championships.

Brackets are, as always, available on digitalpool.com. Selected matches are going to be streamed on Griff’s TV YouTube channel.

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