What an epic event the 2025 UK OPEN was… worth a quick recap in case you missed all the action:
LADIES – a dominant performance by PBR’s own Lucy Vince swept her to victory, winning all three finals games on AIQ, Baywatch and Jackbot, after qualifying in first using only 3 cards. Yet another impressive performance from Lucy who continues to improve tremendously year on year
YOUTH – 9 year old Michael Aw upset the odds to take down the U14 juniors event. He started on a tear - winning his first 5 games before getting beaten by Lucy on Addams Family. The deciding game was against A-rated Danish wonderkid Adrian Kjaer on James Bond, with Michael overcoming a 132M to 22M deficit on ball 3 to win the competition.
CLASSICS – Viggo Lowgren topped qualifying, but it was EAPA’s Reece Powell who caught the eye in 8th place – a triumphant 1.8M top score on Nine Ball to finish off an epic card propelled Reece into the top 8 with choice of games. Sadly his run ended there but what a performance the man who has barely played for weeks prior to the UKO. Other Brits with huge performances to qualify: Matt Vince, Kate Rothwell Jackson, Owen Lloyd, Rich Mallett, Andrew Foster and Josh Iles. Another underdog story was Steven Smith qualifying in style with two huge games on Stars and Meteor to finish. In the end, Classics was won by a masterful display by Nic Stein, winning every game in the finals.
Lukas Ott finished 2nd, Peter Andersen 3rd and Carlos Delaserda 4th.
There were also excellent playoff performances from Andy Foster (5th) and Matt Vince (8th). Congratulations Nic!
MAIN COMP - There were an amazing 181 Participants in Main with one of the toughest lineups ever in European competition – headlined by Arvid, Viggo, Timber and Paul Englert, with the Brit contingent out in force. After the qualifying dust settled, Jack Slovacek ranked 11th in the world pro rankings topped the rankings behind an 154M on Elvis, edging world number 4 Flygare (King Kong 916M) by a single point. Yuen Aw grabbed 3rd in qualifying with a 1B+ game on Jurassic Park, with Timber Englebeen (2.9B WCS) secured the last double bye spot.
While Andy Foster was again the last Brit standing with an excellent 5th, the tournament finalists were ECS Finals and British Masters champion Timber Engelbeen, Roy Wils, Nic Stein and 17 year old French wonder Alexandre Bouet. Bouet started off with a colossal game of Jackbot, followed by a superb 770M after 2 balls on Jaws – with Timber on less than 50m and just one ball left, it looked entirely over. But Timber put on one of the most incredible comebacks in UK history to end on over 900M and tie up the final with just Surf and Safari remaining. After some nail-biting stuff, Alexandre held his nerve on ball 3 of the final game to overtake Timber and secure the title. An incredible final worthy of another exceptional UK Open. Outstanding by Alex – with far more to come… Nic Stein took 3rd and Roy Wils 4th.
Also of note from the Brit side: Will Jarvis in 7th, Yuen Aw in J10th, Josh Iles in 14th, Craig Pullen 21st.
The B finals were won by 16 year old George Bennett - fantastic play by him!
PBR COMP – The PBR comp was won by Viggo Lowgren, who won a finals duel with Swedish rival and friend Arvid Flygare. Brit qualifiers of note with their finishing positions: Will Jarvis (J11th) Craig Pullen (J13th), Josh Iles (J20th), Yuen Aw (J20th)
Sincere thanks once again to Neil and the whole team for a truly phenomenal event yet again – it really was a wonderful few days of top pinball tournament action!