Joshua Filler🇩🇪 and Chieh-Yu (Rita) Chou🇹🇼 win Wisconsin Open
No surprises there...
THE WISCONSIN OPEN WAS A GOOD MIX of international pros, semipros, and amateurs, in both the men’s and women’s divisions. The four-day 10 Ball tournament concluded with Joshua Filler and Chieh-Yu Chou capturing respective titles.
Although the event didn’t have an international ring to it, many from afar still traveled to the venue, a casino in the Ho-Chunk tribal lands, to compete. The nearest metropolis, Madison, is roughly an hour’s car ride away. In the men’s open, there were players from Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, China, New Zealand, Germany, Greece, Peru, France, Canada, Vietnam, Netherlands, and Ukraine. The women’s open attracted female players from Argentina, Canada, Taiwan, Germany, Japan, Australia, South Korea, India, Portugal, Spain, Vietnam, New Zealand, and Bulgaria.
Filler and Fedor Gorst were the favorites to win and both seemed unstoppable through the early rounds. However, Gorst fell to Tyler Styer in the crucial last 16 elimination round. In fact, Styer had a great showing to play Filler in the final.
It should be noted that in the quarterfinal round only three American players remained: Styer, Sam Henderson, and Paul Song, with only Styer being the pro. Perhaps this is an encouraging sign that these tournaments are bringing out aspiring players from all over the U.S. (Henderson is from Iowa and Song is from Georgia), plus that their skill levels are good enough to compete with the international talent.
Unfortunately, it was a different story in the women’s division. The quarterfinals saw no American female players. Half of the quarterfinalists were Asian players and three of them from Taiwan. Three out of four Taiwanese entrants finished in the quarterfinals — not bad at all.
Congratulations to Filler and Chou! The next stop in the Pro Billiard Series will be the Michigan Open in September.
JFLOWERS SCOTTISH OPEN TO WHET THE APPETITE. Right before the U.K. Open begins Matchroom offers the Scottish Open for fans to get their fix. Unfortunately, details are scarce online except the fact that it’s listed in the Matchroom 2023 calendar.
ALL EYES ON THE MATCHROOM U.K. OPEN. The inaugural U.K. Open was in 2022 so this tournament is still in its infancy but has already gotten a lot of attention and a full field of players from all over the world. The tournament starts May 30. The J.S. Junior Open will also take place in the same venue June 2-3.
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