Joshua Filler vs Skyler Woodward | 2020 Mosconi Cup

The one that he lost of course was the final match last year when he was beaten by Skyler Woodward. That was a very emotional moment for him too. He was tearful after that, felt like he'd let the side down but America played great last year. Yeah he didn't hide from that at all, he acknowledged just how disappointing it was to him and spoke about it just the other day in fact at the pre-tournament press conference and said Woodward just played so well in that match. Oh golden break nearly. I don't think we've seen a golden break all week have we? No we have not. Let's take another look at that see how it got kicked in by the six ball there. That could have turned everything then couldn't it so we'll see what happens now maybe there is a turning point. There's certainly nothing easy here that he's left with that's for sure. He's looking at maybe he should go for the cut shot and really there's not really any safety options. There's not any clustered balls on the opposite side of the table to play behind so I think it's either he's going to split the balls or he's going to go for it. Oh that's unfortunate. I mean you're at the mercy of the gods on that shot it's hard to control the cue ball but he certainly didn't deserve that. Well on a shot like that it's hard to control the cue ball as you say at any time but on a surface as slick as this even more so you just really don't know what it's going to do. Still he's got to keep his chin up and stay in the game his teammates have to be right behind him and keep pushing him and this is a nice start for Joshua I'm sure he's happy to be at the table. Oh Skyler Woodward so nearly won this rack with his opening shot of it. It was only a few moments ago but it already must feel like a distant memory to him because with just about the easiest nine ball you could imagine Joshua Filler has taken the opening rack. I think the feeling was Alison coming into tonight that the USA needed to win four of the five matches to give themselves real hope going into tomorrow. Now of course it's got to be four in a row. Yeah it's a tall order against this European team they've really played so well yesterday Jason Shaw won them three points you know there was a little bit of luck involved and you know when you break the balls sometimes I think one that Shane covered the one ball just at the last second you never know what's going to happen you can predict some of it but there's been some tough roles for the USA and things are going Europe's way so it is an uphill battle for sure. Sometimes all you can do is laugh about it maybe shake your hair around a bit if you're lucky enough to have that much of it. Well he's got nothing to lose now I just saw him pre-match there Joey was showing him some video of his wife and his baby at home so you've just got to think happy thoughts and get on with it. I wonder whether the jaw of the pocket is blocking his path here to the one we'll get a better view from here. Oh it could be yeah sort of squinty yeah the way he's looking at it it definitely is so maybe he could just clip off the edge of it let's see see what these young eyes produce oh look at that a nice little bank what a shot yeah absolutely now if we had 2 000 people in the arena they would have gone wild on that shot that was a great shot well he loves a good celebration himself Joshua Filler even when there isn't a crowd and he won the US Open which did obviously have a big turnout in Las Vegas he went absolutely wild in the arena. I've seen him go wild in China too when he won the China Open I was actually there. I'm sure his wife Pierre is watching at home eagerly waiting to see if he pulls another point for Europe. She's probably calling out the shots he should play yeah an accomplished player herself of course absolutely and I think he's really missed Pierre this week you know just the way he's played and his demeanor but he's here to do a job and I'm sure they've been facetiming a lot. It's looking like a dream start for him here yeah hard to see what can go wrong here and you know you just look at it you were talking there about how America haven't really got the look and I think everyone would agree on that when we saw Woodward have two strokes of misfortune really the nine ball not dropping off the break and then the scratch that he really couldn't have legislated for later on and you could maybe look at it and say that Filler had a bit more good fortune that he was just able to get through to that one ball still though it needed a good shot he produced it and he's gone on from there well he looks like he's got the pace of the table down and a whim for a treat if he's on fire and he's treated us there to a break and run Joshua Filler off to a flyer he leads Skyler Woodward by two racks to nil. You look at this new generation coming through Malison you know you've got Filler you've got Gorst so where's it going to come from on the American side who's going to be the next generation is it going to be Woodward do you see him at the forefront of the younger players coming through for the American side? Well there's a you know junior program over there we need we need more structure in America that's for sure the Europeans seem to have a lot more structure in different countries America needs that they need to really work on that and get some disciplined approach and some good coaches over there good program there's plenty of juniors out there and they aspire to obviously play in this Moscone Cup one day and there's some great players I've been a part of the Atlantic Cup challenge with the BCA over the last couple of years so I've seen the potential there and now what we have to do is produce plenty of tournaments for those juniors to play and once the Covid passes at some point they need some tournaments to play and get some experience. Well the heavy defeat that they're facing here could give them the impetus to do that sort of thing because they're going to see this European team how strong it is how young it is and it's really going to drive home the point that the American pool scene has got to respond to that and give the young players the sort of opportunities you're talking about. Shane is a great role model for Paul no doubt just the amount that he practices the time he puts in how serious he is so he's the guy you want to emulate if you want to do well in the sport the most successful US player he just loves it he loves it so much passion for the game well we saw Skyler make a ball on the break but didn't really get a good shot so he's played a push out here and now Joshua can choose whether to put him back in or take it on a couple of safety options so he's going off the left side he's looking at the left side of the one to come one two three rails behind the two and eight and push the one over to the right side of the table that was a beautifully played shot i think that flies in the arena again i don't think it's the one from last night i don't think we're going to see that one again it was taken care of wasn't it zapped squashed i was trying to find a nice word for it but i came up with one for me yeah two falling barely smiling about that that was a big mistake there trying to get through that negotiate that gap while elevated and curving the ball so obviously took off quicker than he imagined there or anticipated i should say all sorts of things still to be played for here obviously the Moscone Cup itself isn't over until someone reaches 11 points but there's the whole MVP situation Jason Shaw very much the front runner for that at the moment but a win here for Filler having already taken the doubles to get him within striking distance of the Glaswegian a lot will depend actually on how many more matches are played in the Moscone Cup this year and whether or not Filler will have enough matches to catch Shaw wow that was unusual for Skyler he's a great bank pool player and he had a couple of you know the bank was the shot you've got to be aggressive and try and create something he's going to be very disappointed with that yeah because all he's created here in the end is a chance for Filler to go three nil and one of the other considerations of course is the Americans don't want to go down in history as one of the heaviest defeats that the tournament has ever seen and some of Europe's recent wins have been very heavy 11-2 in 2013, 11-3 in 2016 the last time they won it was 11-4 heaviest ever defeat was actually meted out by the Americans back in 2001 it was up to 12 in those days and they won 12-1 and incredibly that was after the Americans had actually lost the opening match extension called well we've got a new breed of players now and they're great players as they're shown and they don't mind the pressure beautiful shot there was one team that really needed a fast starter tonight given the position they were in that was the USA there's been a fast start but it's been in favor of the Europeans already a point on the board and well on the way to another one here Joshua Filler leads by three Germany's Joshua Filler is America's national champion after his US Open win in Las Vegas last year right now he's America's chief tormentor already a winner tonight in doubles and cruising along here three nil up as he breaks off in rack four against Skyler Woodward that was a nice break not really a great shot on the one here but he looked very relaxed coming into that didn't he smiling and laughing it's the smile of someone who's part of a team that's leading 9-2 it's easy to be smiling then isn't it that's why you've spent your whole career smiling Alison well thank you quite a bit of it I would say but I've had some tears too along the way Joshua Filler was the man with the tears last year when Skyler Woodward got the clinching point against him as we were saying earlier and we've seen this week there are a lot of sort of personal rivalries and scores to be settled and that'll be an added element for Filler in this match they want to put one over Woodward following the events of 12 months ago in Las Vegas yeah I was actually looking forward to this match tonight but it's looking very one-sided at the moment extension call please that was a good safety shot that Joshua just played on Skyler and so he could play the one ball between the four and the nine looks like he's got other plans on his mind wow that was a beautiful shot well he deserves to be on the one after that that was a great shot he cross banked the four ball there did well even to think of it let alone executed a really nice shot you can always learn something from these players who are great at one pocket and banking they play all the disciplines back in America yeah often as part of the same event you have different divisions well the massive tournament every year is a derby city classic and all of these players attend it's a famous event and they have one pocket straight four nine ball and banks is different division anyone can play in it so that's that's been really good for the pool calendar over the years one of the other pool disciplines that's probably the most familiar to British viewers is eight ball Skyler Woodward has been US Open champion in that discipline his best year was last year topped $100,000 in prize money for the first time he's been in the top 10 of the global money list for the last three years in a row adding up to well over a quarter of a million in that time and he has been a tournament winner this year not many players can say that because there haven't been many tournaments for obvious reasons but he did all the way back in January in a very different world doesn't look to fancy this one though he's worried about the scratch in the corner pocket that's why they missed it because you see where the cue ball is headed he should have really let his stroke out there hit it hard so that the cue ball curves a bit he was just very worried about the cue ball there and Filler takes full advantage he's now leading by four racks to nil and we were saying Alison we haven't seen a golden break another thing we haven't seen in this Moscone Cup so far is a 5-0 that could be about to change and indeed the last player to win a match 5-0 was Joshua Filler last year against Shane Van Boning on day three well let's look at that again when the two balls collide there's a little bit of throw on the object ball so you have to always aim those shots a little bit thinner than you think but I think he was more thinking about that cue ball there very disappointed because that's a chance for him to get the game on the board he's not disappointed on the other hand well he always looks like a man on a mission he knows his own talent he believes in it he works so hard at the game he looks after himself physically and he competes so hard out on the table and there's Jeremy Jones and Joey Gray and you've got to have a bit of sympathy for them because they've put so much work into this all year long it means so much to them first time Jeremy Jones as captain it's been a part of so many winning Moscone Cup teams as a player and really it's just all falling apart for them yeah and like we've said on the last couple of days they haven't competed much you know if at all and so it's been very tough coming out here for the biggest event of your career and you know just trying to put a good game on as we saw in the first day there were so many mistakes that they had to mentally change for the next day and it seems like Europe have done the trick I always thought at the beginning of this Moscone Cup that the quiet arena would suit the Europeans more and I think that has come to fruition presumably though in spite of the heavy defeat that looks almost inevitable now Jeremy Jones having only come in this year will still be retained for 2021 I don't think this is anything to do with bad captaincy at all I think Jeremy's a great guy a good captain he's he really cares and he's he's done everything he can to prepare the team given the circumstances you know you have to remember at the end of the day we've got a lot of different personalities playing for and you have to be able to talk the language of each person on an individual basis and that's not easy well I'm sure being the analytical people they are Jones and Gray will go away and think about this and figure out what they might have to do differently but Filler wishes he'd done something differently there that's unexpected that's a massive mistake wasn't it so I just hope that Sky can really run out this rack and get a point on the board and just pretend everything else hasn't happened just pretend it's zero zero and get his one on the board and then go from there here we go back to his banking skills that's better nice shot so he's just got to hold it together this is a little tricky just being close to the route but it shouldn't pose any problem well that's even more surprising than the one Filler just missed commentators curse again I felt like he was a little bit quick in the delivery there you know there are times when you just have to slow yourself down a little bit and just take that little bit of extra time but it seemed like it was a little bit quick and Joshua Filler has been very quick to what seems like certain victory now yeah you can't make any mistakes against Joshua he's going to punish you every time and the net result of it all is the first 5-0 of this year's Mosconi Cup Joshua Filler gains a measure of revenge for events in Las Vegas 12 months ago he's blown away Skyler Woodward it's 10-2 now over to Albin Ocean and Fedor Gors to bring it on home for Europe