Once the proceeding got rolling, there was action aplenty. Among the early showdowns were between Music City Open champ Johnathan “Hennessee” Pinegar and Luke Gaines. Throughout the games, o­nly o­ne time was there more than a o­ne-game difference between them, and the lead jockeyed back and forth all the way, until Hennessee finally put Gaines away 9-8. Hennessee went o­n to a hard-fought match with Nick Vita but fell just short at 9-7 after having seemingly won the battle. He will play Sunday noontime in an attempt to rise from the o­ne-loss round to challenge again.

The winner of Friday's mini, Danny Basavich, drew crowds for his matches o­n Saturday, alternating between annihilating his opponents and systematically defeating them. From his opening-round 9-1 squelching of Gary Browning to his 9-3 handling of Rodney Morris in the next bracket to his finishing flourish against the top 20 women's-ranked Lisa Marr to finish the day, he was a crowd-pleaser throughout.

The Sunday lineup in the winners’ bracket includes many of the names you'd expect: Tony Fargo will face Earl Strickland; two Shanes, McMinn and Jones, match up appropriately; Barry Emerson battles James Baraks, Tom Seymour plays Nick Vita; Blake Todd faces Gordon Vanderveer; Shannon Daulton squares off with Gabe Owen for about the hundredth time; Jeremy “Double J” Jones meets “Kid Delicious”; and Chris Bartram deals with Lil’ John.

The o­ne-loss bracket includes Dave Matlock (who fell before “Double J”); Jonathan Hennessee; the two women, Marr and Gabriel, are still in the hunt; and several others.  Still a lot of great matches to be played. If you are in the Memphis area, come o­n down!

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