Justin Martin and Monaim Neffati
Two of the top three finishers in this past weekend’s (Aug. 22-23) NC State 10-Ball Open Championships were two of the top three finishers in last June’s (27-28) NC State Open 9-Ball Championships. Three of the top four finishers were in both. Last June, BJ Ussery, Jr. went undefeated to the hot seat of the 9-Ball Open and split the top two prizes with Monaim Neffati. Justin Martin finished 3rd. This past weekend, Neffati went undefeated to claim the 10-ball title, downing Martin in the final. Corey Morphew, who lost the hot seat battle to Neffati, finished 3rd this past weekend, while BJ Ussery lost a winners’ side, double-hill battle versus Neffati, and was eliminated by the son of the event host’s owner, Jas Makhani, in the loss side’s 9th/12th matches. The $1,000-added event drew 33 entrants to Breaktime Billiards in Clemmons, NC.
Small state, small world.
After an opening-round bye, Neffati got by Soloman Pope 7-3, as BJ Ussery was busy sending Derek Leonard to the loss side 7-2. Then they met. Neffati won a double-hill match, moved on to send Landon Hollingsworth to the loss side 7-5 and drew Grayson Vaughan in one of the winners’ side semifinals.
From the other end of the bracket, Corey Morphew headed out for the hot seat match, downing Donnie Stewart 7-2 before surviving a double-hill challenge from Kelly Farrar, and sending Jas Makhani to the loss side 7-3 in a winners’ side quarterfinal. Morphew drew Joao Sias in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Neffati defeated Vaughan 7-4, while Morphew and Sias were engaging in a double-hill battle, won by Morphew. Neffati claimed the hot seat 7-3 over Morphew.
Sias showed up on the loss side and drew Landon Hollingsworth, who followed his loss to Neffati by shutting out Kelly Farrar and eliminating Derek Leonard, double hill. Vaughan joined the loss side and picked up Justin Martin, who’d followed his third-round, winners’ side loss to Sias with two straight 7-3 wins over Onyx Stinson and Jas Makhani.
Martin followed up with his third 7-3 win, over Vaughan, and advanced to the quarterfinals. Hollingsworth joined him after eliminating Sias 7-4.
Martin grew more economical as he progressed on the loss side. He followed those two 7-3 wins with two straight 7-2 wins; over Hollingsworth in the quarterfinals and Morphew in the semifinals.
FargoRate ‘odds’ calculations gave Martin the edge in the final. With his rate just 14 points higher than Neffati’s (749-735), the odds were close to even in their race to 9. Odds-makers would have described Martin as being the 7-5 favorite. And it looked, early on, like it was the right call.
The match was winner breaks and ‘call everything.’ Off Neffati’s break at the start, Martin opened the scoring, then, with the match’s first ‘break and run,’ he made it 2-0 off of his own break. Neffati checked in with his first rack, after which Martin responded with two more, including a second ‘break and run,’ bringing the score to 4-1.
And from there, it was “Bang, bang, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer came down on (Martin’s) head,” as Neffati began a seven-rack run to the hill. As he was doing that, he cemented a growing reputation as something of a speed demon at the table; in effect, adding ‘bada-boom, bada-bing’ shooting to the “bang, bang Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” run that all but closed out the 2026 NC State 10-Ball Open Championships.
It was a run that in spite of it going Neffati’s way most of the time, had its entertaining share of top-notch shooting; two pros going at each other with the best weapons in their arsenal. That said, it should be noted that neither one of them was demonstrating any consistency with their break. Combined, they only dropped 15 balls off the break in a 14-rack match, just over, on average, one ball per break, with Martin dropping the most (three) at the start of his second ‘break and run.’ They dropped two balls off the break three times (2-1, Martin), one ball off the break six times (Neffati, 5-1) and broke dry four times (3-1, Neffati). It didn’t entail any long list of unforced errors by Martin, though there were a few of those. The missed opportunities came when they got locked into an inning or two of safety play, both of them demonstrating that they had the ability do that well, as well. Neffati came out of a lot of those with a clear path to a rack’s finish line.
With Neffati on the hill, Martin chalked up his first rack since he’d been ahead 4-2, in a strange sequence of events during rack #13. Off Neffati’s break, Martin got to the table soon, shooting at the 2-ball, with an intervening ball making a jump shot necessary. The cue ball got into the air successfully, but when it struck the 2-ball, it did so with enough force to send it flying off the table. Ball-in-hand to Neffati, as commentators Ketan Patel, Jas Makhani and tour director Christy Norris vocally started preparing for it to be over. Neffati had the 9-ball and 10-ball lined up to finish it and he rattled the 9-ball in a corner pocket. Martin stepped up, dropped the last two balls and chalked up his 5th rack.
Off Martin’s break (two balls), Neffati eventually took control of the table and made it officially over with him in possession of the event title.
Tour director Christy Norris thanked Sundeep Makhani, his son Jas and the staff at Breaktime Billiards for their hospitality. For further information about upcoming events, visit Breaktime Billiards & Sports Bars Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BreakTimeBilliard
This dispatch was curated from AZBilliards.
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