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ON PLAYING a LEGEND
by Kirstin Pires
Tommy Karabatsos plays pretty well. The 42-year old room owner
from the Chicago suburbs didn't embarass himself on the Camel Pro
Billiards Series, and he's won some respectable Viking and
McDermott tournaments, and came in second in the U.S. Snooker
championship in 1998. And he managed to get through four rounds
here at the U.S. Open undefeated. But at 9:00 on Thursday, he drew
Earl Strickland. Four-time U.S. Open Champion Earl Strickland.
"Twenty years I been waiting to play Earl, and I get him in
the U.S. Open," said Karabatsos. "I'm thinking I'm going
to beat him 11-0. I got it all planned out in my mind. Then
reality struck."
Karabatsos pointed out that he had a chance early on, "I made
a great kick to tie 1-1," he said.
The usually unperturbable Karabatsos pondered whether Strickland
had sharked
him some. "I lost my composure a bit," he said. "He
got under my skin." But it wasn't the mercurial Strickland's
antics that shook Karabatsos. "It's his
game that bothers me," he muttered. "He runs out."
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"I've got a long
way to go here, yet," Strickland said, when asked if there was room to
embroider another year on his green blazer.
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