The Ga Young Kim Show
Dec 21, 2014
Ga Young Kim put on a clinic with an array of shots that only she could provide.Photos courtesy of Alison Fischer NYCGrind.com
New York City- There's good pool, great pool, and Ga Young Kim pool. Ga Young Kim put on an exhibition of masterful shots in last night's semi-finals in a entertaining and dominating performance that resulted in a 13-3 rout. Texan Vivian Villarreal also played superbly completely controlling her semi-finals by identical 13-3 scores. Today is the finale of the Andy Cloth Women's International Pool Championship. The pro tournament is the longest women's billiard event of any kind with 6 days of heavy pool action with a round robin event that evolves into a final single elimination chart where players will start out races to 10 in 10-Ball and eventually rise to races to 11,13, and 17 in the finals. All activities are taking place at Steinway Billiards Cafe and sponsored by Andy Cloth, J.Pechauer Cues , Viking Cues, Steinway Billiards. , Olhausen Balls, Pool & Billiard Magazine , the NAPL & Focused Apparel . Patron sponsors include Dr. Greg Diehl, Tom Gleich, and Dr. Michael Frank. Media partners include PKE Partners, IB Sports, NYC Grind, Gotham City Technologies, Nona Photography, and Charles Eames Photography. 7 days of live pool will be filmed and streamed by Inside Pool TV. Pay per view on www.Dragonpromotions.com for the live marquee matches Andy Cloth Women's International Pool Championship taking place December 16th-21st at the same venue. The Championship is sanctioned by the WPBA Women's Pocket Billiards Association.
Andy Billiard Cloth is the exclusive both used at international championship as well as numerous World Championships with their specially designed pro cloth for western pool
Young newbie Denise Wilkinson came with her aunt and uncle on 6 days notice to New York City all the way from New Zealand on a 22 hour flight. They didn't expect alot. But the trip paid out in dividends when Denise came through the round robin and then defeated Amway World Champion Jennifer Chen of Taiwan and then knowcked out 5x Canadian National Champion Naomi Williams in the quarter finals. "We just wanted her to get experience. She doesn't have many people to play with in New Zealand. But this is far more than we expected with her getting to the semi-finals", said Wendy Cook, her aunt who also manages Wilkinson.
But now she was playing a 3 times World Champion. And Ga Young Kim didn't fail to deliver on why most believe she is the best on the planet. The match started off a little slow with Kim taking a 2 game lead off some errors. Denise then got her first open shot and made a nice statement on a strong out. But then some nerves showed off a few misses. Ga Young Kim then turned up the notches making some incredible outs. Kim broke so well hitting the 10-Ball rack with power and accuracy stopping the cueball at the center repeatedly and balls flying in. Shane Van Boening would've been impressed. Kim also made spectacular jumps shots, kick shots, bank shots, shot with the bridge, behind her back, and almost decided to go for a difficult masse but decided not to. And the balls listened as if they had no choice. Wilkinson likely has never experienced this kind of playing against her, and it visibly rattled her as she was not able to take advantage even with ball in hand once and hooked herself on the 9-Ball. Eventually Kim won 13-3 with a 9 game win streak in a 80 minute match.
"She looked like she could do anything she wanted in that match. It's kind of scary", said Mike Badsteubner one of the expert commentators for the event.
Ga Young moves into the finals with a 11-0 record for the event. If you include the Battle of the Billiards Beauty tournament beforehand, she has won 19 consecutive matches during the past 7 days. Today if she wins in the finals it will make it an even 20.
" I don't think I've played my best game yet this week", said Kim. All we can say is wow to that.
Wilkinson according to some experts was playing the best out of all the women this week. But Ga Young proved to be no ordinary top opponent.
Barretta was stymied throughout the match and finished a respectable 3rd in front of her home crowd.
Villarreal in top form all week long.
The Villarreal vs Barretta match was highly anticipated as a marquee semi-finals. But it turned out to be a one sided affair with Barretta playing one of her worst matches. On the otherhand, Vivian looked as good as she ever has 2 stroking balls in left and right. VIllarreal's high octane game looked amped up compared to Barretta and she dominated to a 13-3 win that took well under 2 hours.
"I feel really good. I'm playing as good as I can", said Villarreal.
This sets up today's championship finals between two of the most dynamic players on Earth. Starts at 1:00pm EST and can be seen at www.dragonpromotions.com click onto Day 6.
See all the brackets can be found and full schedule of play times at www.dragonpromotions.com
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