With a large number of the London’s Finest Pool contingent in Glasgow for the Jacboy Open during the previous weekend, a few of the biggest names were missing from this week’s MNT. Namely Ramesh “Ramma Jamma” Gokhul was missing, and those who were able to attend were clearly hungover from the rigours of playing top class pool in Scotland, but a hardy 24 players still formed a dangerous field, with Rod “the God” Altes leading the charge, as he went in search of his 2nd tournament win in a row. This week saw the classic 8 Ball being played. A favourite amongst many.
Before everything kicked off, Nick Ronase was selected for the Break and Run. Nick has a mean break and smashed up the balls to sink 4 balls! A huge break….but the cue ball was still moving, almost like it was magnetised, and finally jumped in the pocket to deny Nick a healthy £200 for his efforts. As is always the case, huge groans reverberated around the pool hall, followed by laughter, cackling, and an immense amount of sarcasm. Unlucky Nick, even though no-one was rooting for you.
First round kicked off, and notable results came in the form of Nick Ronase getting smashed up by Mariusz Wisowaty, who was bottom of the rankings before the tournament started, but played nothing like it as he battled past Nick. Well done Mariusz! Ramon “Monster” Navarro managed to avoid yet another hill-hill match against Andy “Banks” Curzon, who was suffering serious after-effects from Glasgow, and won 5-2. Recent regular, Carl Jones, also took advantage of the Glasgow hangover that Dan “Seoul Destroyer” Suh was suffering from, although Carl played almost flawlessly to win 5-0. There might have been an element of revenge, as Dan fluked his way to victory against Carl in a recent T9B tournament too, but 5-0 was a fair result. The only Glasgow returnee to not have this hangover was Saman Gholami, who has been playing extremely well recently, and he continued to show that he is one of the most feared opponents by edging out Ciprian Dandu 5-4.
The second round saw some superb performances again. The most notable was that of Mariusz, who, after winning in the first round, continued his momentum to utterly tear apart Krishen “Kris” Sookhraz 5-1. Mariusz was over the moon at this point, and playing very well, and also had one eye on the final as his confidence grew. Elsewhere, Ali Haidery had also notched up a big win against the big man, Carl. Ali has also been struggling to get results, but is working hard on his game to improve and he showed it by showing huge grit and resolve to take the match to hill-hill. Carl, perhaps, had expended too much energy against the Seoul Destroyer in the first round, and just couldn’t reach the heights he had previously shown, and it was Ali who sunk the 8 ball to send him into the quarter-finals.
The quarters had this unfamiliar look of having Ali H and Mariusz in the mix, but there were some fearsome opponents to topple. First off, Mariusz had to face up to Muhammed “He’s the Greatest” Ali, a man who has turned his form around in the past few months after having a very poor 2023 until May. Mariusz just couldn’t quite compete against the classy Ali, and lost out 5-1, but will have taken a lot of confidence from his earlier wins.
Ali H had an even more daunting task on his hands, as Rod stepped up to face off against Ali, who was looking quite wide-eyed and nervous at this point. Rod will be the first to admit that he wasn’t at his best, but he was playing with a lot of confidence and wasn’t going to give much for Ali to feed off. 5-1 win for Rod, but Ali demonstrated that he can compete, with his earlier win over Carl.
Henri “the Finnisher” Linnainmaa continues to baffle his fans, as his style and poise is one of the most admirable, but seems to fall at the final hurdle. In the quarters, he totally switched on and easily won against Dhari Alduraibi to set himself up against the Greatest Ever, Ali.
Saman had been progressing nicely at this point, but came up against the king of the hill-hills, Ramon “Monster” Navarro, one of the more experienced players on the scene and one of the slowest Filipino’s you’ll ever see. Ramon is very handy, though, and Saman was feeling the effects of the weekend. Ramon took full advantage and whilst it was extremely close, Ramon held his nerve better than Saman to win 5-4.
So into the semis, and Ali faced Henri, which turned out to be a classic match. 4-1 lead to Henri, who had played well to capitalise on any of Ali’s mistakes, but Ali kept plugging away, chipping away, and caught up with Henri, who was starting to feel the heat. At 4-4, it looked like Henri might take his chance to win, but couldn’t handle the pressure and handed the rack to Ali. A real shame for Henri, who really is so close to breaking through.
In the other semi, Rod had imbibed quite a healthy amount of alcohol by this point, but was feeling good even though he was making one or two mistakes. Ramon summoned up all of his powers to keep the game close, but Rod tends to squeeze the life out of you like a boa constrictor, and Ramon just couldn’t keep up with Rod. 5-3 to the resurgent god, to set up a tasty final against Ali.
The final, though, went the way the bookies had expected. Ali is such a fine player on his day, but holds a poor head to head record against Rod, and the shortened final ended 4-1 to Rod. With plenty of action to come, and a strong likelihood that Tooting’s number 1 will be back in action next week, next Monday promises to be one of the most exciting Monday’s ever seen in Tooting.
