East Brunswick, NJ- The battles have begun. Even the most elite 14.1 players would not be able to avoid defeat the first day as titans clashed early on. Russia's Konstantin Stepanov, also ranked #1 currently in Europe, won all three of his matches including a 100- 55 trouncing of legendary Allen Hopkins in which he ran 77 balls. Dennis Hatch suffered a worse beating to Netherland's Van Den Berg 100-18. European 14.1 Champion Niels Feijen demolished Immonen 100-28. Max Eberle defeated fellow USA player Mike Davis .
Some big upsets included local NYC player Michael Yednak defeating Danny Harriman and NYC's Joey Kong win over Germany's strong young gun Nico Otterman. Strong Northeast player Bob Maidhof handed former US Open 14.1 Champ Ralf Souquet a 100- 11 defeat.
Despite a loss, Souquet led the day with the highest run of the tournament with a 101. Hohmann came in second for the day at 100 while Dennis Hatch jumped back from his first loss and managed a 85 and out while Stepanov stayed strong with a 77. Ouschan ran 74 and tied with Immonen 74 while Schmidt ran 73. The top four highest runs of the entire event will receive bonus money with 1st taking $3000. Anyone running 200 balls or more will be awarded an additional $3000.
Other notable matches included a nail biter 100-95 win to Thomas Engert over Charlie Williams. Engert led the match from 56 to -1 and then 90-50 when Williams made a 40 ball run comeback while using a borrowed cue(many players had lost their cues in transit), and made a terrific backwards bankshot in the end but got stuck in the rack at 95-99 in favor of Engert. Fabio Petroni won his first two matches also using a borrowed cue from Thorsten Hohmann.