LIMA - The famous billiard player and musician Ramon Rodriguez, together with his wife July Pinedo, is the organizar of a Grand Prix Panamericano in Lima this weekend. The American Hugo Patiño is the defending champion. He defeated the Colombian Fernando Diaz last year. Among the participants are the strong Colombian playerss, many Peruvians and the Mexican Javier Vera, who played a star role at the World championship in Boliva two weeks ago. The tournament will start on Thursday, November 23, without preliminaries. The final is on Sunday. The main prize is 5.000 US dollars. The total prize money is $ 20.000.
Ramon and July Rodriguez are the directors of the RAJU Producciones organization in Lima. Ramon: ,,We have 100 participants so far, but in Latin America players are used to register until the last days before the start. With the field so far, we are very happy, because there are many top players, including Carlos Campino, Javier Vera, Huberney Catano, Henry Diaz, Hugo Patiño, José Juan Garcia, Luis Aveiga and from the home land Christopher Tevez, Jose Torreblanca, Maximo Aguirre and Guido Saco.'' Ramón Rodriguez is also one of the participants. The tournament is under the auspices of the Confederacion Panamericana de Billar and the Federacion Deportiva Peruana de Billar. The tournament director is Manuel Setién, coordinator is July Pinedo. The maximum registration is 128.
Ramón Rodriguez: ,,With 100 participants we plan to start in 25 groups of four according to the syseem of the double elimination. After that, two players per group advance with 14 third places. The knock-out is with 64 players. When more players will apear, the schedule will be adjusted.'' The matches are played to 30 points and to 40 points in the knock-out. The tournament is played in a wonderful private club, Circolo Sportivo Italiano, where all kinds of sports take place such as football, basketball, tennis, swimming and gynmastics.
The most known players by country:
Peru: Ramón Rodriguez, Guido Saco, Christopher Tevez, Jose Torreblanco, Maximo Aguirre, Fernando Da Costa
Colombia: Carlos Campino, Huberney Cataño, Robinson Morales, Alexander Salazar, Jose Juan Garcia, Arley Galeano, Henry Diaz, Julian Torres, Carlos Villegas, Luis Martinez en Alejandro Piza
Mexico: Javier Vera
Bolivia: Juan Carlos Cartagena, Amilcar Tapia
Ecuador: Luis Veiga, Pedro Reyes
USA: Hugo Patiño.
The matches are broadcast by 8 Kozoom camera's
Hugo Patiño (right) is the title defender, Erick Tellez from Costa Rica (left)
The players on top of the podium in last year's Grand Prix in Lima
