The first ASA Open of 2009 in the Golden state produced a couple of surprises.

Wayne Smith won Group A, wining both of his games against David Jensen and Kevin Nieman.

Group B produced the first surprise with John Carroll finishing in first place. John beat Dominic Hutchinson, held on under a barrage of shots for a goalless draw against Simon Hutchinson, and defeated number two seed Steve Tucker.

These results led to the number one seed, Wayne, playing the number two seed, Steve, in the Open semi finals. It was closely fought match that perhaps Wayne was lucky not be made to play extra time. In the other semi final David Jensen defeated John Carroll to set up an all “Group A final”.

In the third place play-off game Steve took his revenge upon John to win the game and claim third place.

This final was the first one David had reached, and considering he had only been playing with the Southern California Subbuteo Club for five months this was quiet an achievement.

Wayne adapted to the pitch quicker than David, who struggled with the slow pitch and the back bar on the goals. He finally mastered it during the second half, but by then Wayne had won the match.

Kevin Nieman defeated Dominic in the Mary Jane semi final to go on and face Simon in the final. The game opened with Simon applying a lot of pressure on Kevin’s goal and he won the game with a solitary first half goal.

Winners

• Open
  • Winner: Wayne Smith
  • Runner up: David Jensen
  • Third:  Steve Tucker
  • Fourth : John Carroll
• Mary Jane
  • Winner: Simon Hutchinson
  • Runner up: Kevin Nieman
  • Third:  Dominic Hutchinson

A full report and all of the results can be found on the ASA Open page.