‘Wei-Wei’ goes undefeated to claim the $40k-added, WPBA Soaring Eagle Masters
Sometimes you hear it, when breath is expelled with a sound. Sometimes you don’t, when it’s a quick inhalation. At last night’s (Sun., June 8) final in the WPBA’s 2025 Soaring Eagle Masters tournament in Mount Pleasant, MI, it was a little bit of both. The combatants were Taipei’s Tzu-Chien Wei (known as “Wei-Wei” to […]
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Pia Filler and Tzu-Chien Wei (Photo courtesy WPBA)
Sometimes you hear it, when breath is expelled with a sound. Sometimes you don’t, when it’s a quick inhalation. At last night’s (Sun., June 8) final in the WPBA’s 2025 Soaring Eagle Masters tournament in Mount Pleasant, MI, it was a little bit of both. The combatants were Taipei’s Tzu-Chien Wei (known as “Wei-Wei” to many of the women on the tour) and Germany’s Pia (“Killer”) Filler. A matter of minutes away from the end, “Killer” had won two games in a row, to come back from a three-rack deficit that had Wei-Wei on the hill at 9-6, now cut to 9-8.
Wei-Wei broke the next rack and dropped two balls. An interfering 6-ball blocked the straight path of the 3-ball into the corner pocket. She banked it, successfully, but left herself with a deep-cut shot at the 4-ball, which rattled in the corner pocket. Filler was on her feet before the cue ball stopped moving, as commentator Lonnie Fox-Raymond in the ‘stream’ booth, excited about the possibility of a double-hill game that would finish the tournament, mirrored the expectations of everyone in the room and those following the event on the live stream.
“It’s not over. Let’s go!!” she said, admitting that because of the intensity level involved, double-hill games are her “favorite.” She wasn’t alone in that thought.
Filler stepped to the table with an up-and-down, but very do-able pattern that’d set her up for the final two, with the 9-ball still on the spot and the 8-ball inches away. Up for the 4, back down for the 5, up for the 6, down for the 7 and the cue ball came to rest at the tip of a thin triangle with the 8-ball and 9-ball as its base, both aimed at a corner pocket.
Filler came to the table, calm as you please on the outside, though certainly cognizant of the stakes, she stepped to the opposite side of the table for a moment to glance at a projected path for the 9-ball and then took her time lining up the 8-ball. And missed, the ball hitting just down-table of the pocket. The 8-ball came to rest just inches away from the side pocket, as the cue ball rolled to a stop where the 8-ball had been, right next to the 9-ball.
Fox-Raymond’s response was a breath-intake gasp, audible only because a microphone picked it up and followed with “Oh, no!” Stream commentators checked in with ouch, Dang, Uhoh, Momma! No way and yikes.
Wei-Wei stepped to the table and claimed the 2025 Soaring Eagle Masters title.
According to the event report posted on the WPBA Web site, the “talent level” at this year’s Soaring Eagle tournament, which drew its 64-entrant field to the Soaring Eagle Resort and Casino, was extraordinary.
“If the 49-year-old WPBA has taught us anything,” noted the post, “it’s that the talent curve keeps bending upward.”
“WPBA analysts reviewed every professional women’s event from the past five seasons, and confirmed what the fans inside the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort already knew: This 64-entrant player lineup carried the highest talent ever recorded for a women’s tournament.”
No argument from this end of the ‘peanut gallery’ on that. There were a total of 19, double-hill matches, including, but not limited to Sofia Mast’s opening-round, double-hill win over Japan’s Miina Tani, Kristina Tkach’s (runner-up in the 2024 event) over veteran Monica Webb, Kristina Zlateva’s win over Filler, which sent her to the loss side, and Filler’s rematch win against her in the semifinals.
A quick note on the 16-year-old Mast’s finish in the tie for 9th. She followed the opening-round, double-hill win over Tani with another double-hill win over Serbia’s Bojana Sarac. An 8-4 win over Taipei’s Wang Wan-Ling put her into a winners’ side quarterfinal against Filler, who sent her to the loss side 8-2. Things did not get easier for Mast as she came out of the ‘frying pan’ of Filler and jumped right into the “Kwikfire” of Kelly Fisher, who eliminated her 8-5. Fisher, who was initially engaged with snooker at the age of 16, had, by the time she was 22, won three consecutive Ladies World Snooker Championships. In 2003, she won the first International Billiards and Snooker Federation’s first World Ladies Championship. Mast, who has yet to graduate from high school, shows many of the signs that indicate strong potential for a similar career track at the tables.
And lest we forget, Savannah Easton, younger than Mast, was in attendance as well, finishing one payout-slot lower (13th).
Wei and Zlateva set out on track to the hot seat match
An opening round, 8-2 win over Debbie Teichert started Wei’s ‘train’ rolling toward the hot seat match. A pair of arguably more challenging 8-6 wins, against Eylul Kibaroglu and Yuki Hariguchi followed, with an 8-4 win over “The Grinder,” April Larson, in the middle. This put Wei into a winners’ side semifinal against Korea’s Seo Seoa. Kristina Zlateva, in the meantime, opened with an 8-3 win over WPBA, long-time veteran Billie Billing and an 8-2 victory over Argentina’s Ayala Soledad. Two 8-6 wins later, over Japan’s Chihiro Kawahara and Sakura Murumatsu, she advanced to face Filler in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Wei sent Seoa to the loss side 8-5, as Filler and Zlateva were busy battling to double hill. Zlateva won that battle, joining Wei in the hot seat match. She was sent to an immediate rematch against Filler when Wei claimed the seat 8-6.
The battle for the hot seat and the quarterfinal were held simultaneously at noon on Sunday. Seoa and Filler had arrived on the loss side the night before to draw Silviana Lu and Filler, respectively. Lu, who’d lost her opening match to April Larson, remained in contention through seven loss-side matches, which included three, impressive double-hill wins over Briana Miller, Bojana Sarac and, just prior to picking up Seoa, Kelly Fisher. Filler drew Tkach, who’d lost her fourth-round match, double hill, to Seoa ahead of eliminating the defending champion of the Soaring Eagle title, Chieh-Yu 8-4 and Yuki Hiraguchi 8-3.
Seoa won a double-hill battle versus Lu, as Filler was eliminating Tkach 8-5. Filler downed Seoa in their quarterfinal noon-match on Sunday. A little over 15 minutes after the conclusion of that quarterfinal, Zlateva dropped by to engage in a ‘who wants it more’ semifinal battle for a ‘seat’ at the finals table. Not surprisingly, it went double hill. Filler advanced.
After trading racks through the opening two in the final, Pia chalked up three in a row to take a 4-1 lead. Wei-Wei ‘woke up,’ so to speak, and answered with five in a row to take a slim two-rack lead, which Filler promptly closed to one. Tzu ran it back up to two and Filler reduced it back down to one at 7-6.
Battling for the win in rack #14, Wei-Wei found herself in an endgame situation that was exactly like the one that Filler would face in what would prove to be the final rack; 8-ball and 9-ball (on the ‘spot’) at the base of a skinny pyramid outline with the cue ball at the top. She made the shot that Filler would fail to make later and was on the hill at 9-6.
In rack #16, it was Filler who found herself in the exact same, skinny pyramid, endgame situation and without any trouble, drew within two. She went on to win the next game to pull within one. The rest, as noted at the outset, is history.
The WPBA rankings underwent a little shift, although 1 through 3 at the top remained the same; Tkach, Margarita Fefilova, and Zlateva. Allison Fisher, who did not compete, dropped from 4th down to 8th, as Filler moved up from 5th to take her place in 4th. Tzu-Chien Wei jumped up four spots to settle into 5th place. Chieh-Yu Chou, who finished in the tie for 9th, moved up a notch to 6th, Kelly Fisher went from 8th to 7th. Brittany Bryant fell to 9th, while Savannah Easton moved up a spot to join the Top 10.
WPBA representatives thanked the ownership and staff at the Soaring Eagle Resort and Casino, along with Presenting Sponsors, Olhausen, Taom, Jacoby Custom Cues, Brunswick, and Diamond Billiard Products.
The tour will now head to Green Bay, WI for the Inaugural 2025 Oneida WPA Women’s 8-Ball World Championship, July 2-6, at the Oneida Casino & Hotel, with an opening ceremony inside Lambeau Field. The next regular stop on the tour, scheduled for August 21-24, will be the $25,000-added Felt Colorado Classic at Felt Billiards in Englewood, CO.
