Despite a late start to his 2018 campaign, Tissuemon appears well on his way to a place in the TEKKEN World Tour Finals.
Tissuemon continued his charge up the Tour standings on Sunday by winning ADFT IX in Barcelona, Spain. The win was his second Tour victory of the season, the first coming last month at The Colosseum.
Despite not entering a Tour event until last month, the Italian star moved into the top ten of the Tour leaderboard. He currently sits 195 points clear of 19th, which is the last TEKKEN World Tour Finals qualification place.
Tissuemon needed to score two victories over Fergus to secure the title. The two first met in the winners' final, with Tissuemon's signature Master Raven scoring a 3-1 victory over Fergus' Asuka. Fergus won the losers' final to earn another crack at Tissuemon, but his second attempt ended the same as his first. A mid-set switch to Lucky Chloe did earn Fergus a game, but Tissuemon was too much to handle in the end.
Despite falling short of the title, the weekend was a strong one for Fergus. It was easily his best finish of the 2018 Tour, surpassing the ninth-place finishes he earned at both Final Round and Fighting Games Challenge. The 100 points he earned provided a tremendous boost on his quest to return to the TEKKEN World Tour Finals.
ADFT featured all five of the European players who reached the 2017 Tour Finals, and four of them reached the last stages of the Barcelona tournament. Kaneandtrench of the UK finished in third place, while France's Super Akouma tied for seventh place. Blackbeard, the other 2017 Finalist, finished tied for 17th this weekend.
Super Akouma had plenty of French-speaking company during Sunday's finals, as four of the top eight finishers were French. Tops among them was Kalak, who made a tremendous run through the losers' bracket to finish in fourth place. He lost to Tissuemon in pool play, but bounced back to reach the losers' side of the Top 16. Once there, he scored victories over The Phantom, Nicky, Super Akouma, and Fireblade before Kaneandtrench finally ended his run.
Frenchmen Fireblade and Banbino tied for fifth place, while Super Akouma tied for seventh alongside Italy's Ghirlanda.
While French players were making deep runs, the hosts had a rough weekend. XocoHard, who finished tied for 13th place, was the only Spanish player to survive pool play. Three other Spaniards - Immersin, BlackKazama, and Griec - fell one win short of joining XocoHard in the final rounds.
With ADFT in the books, four European players currently sit in position to qualify for the TEKKEN World Tour Finals. Tissuemon strengthened his grip on a Finals place, while Super Akouma maintained his. Kaneandtrench and Fergus moved to the good side of the cut line thanks to their top-tree performances.
The TEKKEN World Tour continues next weekend with CEO 2018, a Master event which will take place in Daytona Beach, Florida.
