Pool: Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp buzzing after delightful double in Florida

SINGAPORE – In the wee hours of Monday, Singapore’s top pool player Aloysius Yapp emerged from a gruelling schedule to pull off an impressive combination by winning both the 9-ball and 10-ball events at the Meucci Classic at Racks Billiards in Sanford, Florida.

First, the 26-year-old avenged his Las Vegas Open final loss to Wiktor Zielinski by beating the world No. 20 Pole 11-3 in the 10-ball final that ended at 2.15am to claim the US$7,000 (S$9,600) cheque.

Then in the 9-ball event, world No. 25 Yapp beat Austria’s 18th-ranked Maximilian Lechner 9-5 in the final that ended at around 4am and cashed in US$3,100.

Despite pulling 18-hour days and surviving on three hours of sleep for three nights, there was no respite for the former world No. 1, as he rushed to the airport after a two-hour nap to catch an 11.25am flight to Puerto Rico for the Nov 15-18 Puerto Rico Open.

Yapp, who typically practises six to eight hours a day, told The Straits Times: “I love to play so much, I can just keep going on, but this tournament helped me understand myself more.

“I’m not a fast player, so I thought the long days of competition would be draining. I didn’t realise I am able to hold it all together under such circumstances. I felt tired on the second day, but by the last day, I had adapted and felt really good with the momentum.”

In all, he won 13 straight matches in both competitions, but there were some close calls.

In the 10-ball race-to-11 quarter-final against Lithuania’s 28th-ranked Pijus Labutis, he was trailing 10-5 and was two balls away from losing in the next game when his opponent missed the 9-ball and Yapp grabbed the lifeline to go on and win 11-10.

In the 9-ball race-to-nine hotseat match (the last match in the winner bracket before the final), he had also come from 4-1 down to beat Lechner 9-8.

“My mind was completely focused, I was in the zone, and it felt pretty good,” said Yapp, who credited his coach Toh Lian Han and previous conversations with a sports psychologist for thriving under such testing conditions.

Hilariously, the one thing that did get under Yapp’s skin was a “screwed-up” haircut he had in Pennsylvania three weeks ago while on a short break.

“On a scale of 10, my annoyance was 20. For a few days, I didn’t feel like going out,” he said. “The barber couldn’t understand English well, so I showed him a picture, but he just cut it real short and it was uneven. I had to borrow my coach’s thinning scissors to fix my hair. I still hate it.”

But the mishap has been mitigated by his fine form and the home-cooked meals his girlfriend – Silviana Lu, an Indonesian player who is also competing on the American circuit – has been whipping up.

Yapp said: “We brought a rice cooker and pot, and improvise with what we can get from the local supermarket. My girlfriend cooks nice Chinese dishes, sometimes we will also have hotpot and it’s nice to have good food together with my coach and teammate Sharik (Sayed).”

Earlier in the year, Yapp had retained his Michigan Open title and won the Sandcastle 9-Ball Open.

After the Puerto Rico Open, the Singaporean will round up his season with the Nov 19-22 World 8-Ball Championship on the Caribbean island.