Open Singles is the main event. This is THE event. If a player has a choice of only one, this is it. At the end of this hard core intense every man for himself event, a World Champion is crowned. These events typically draw 100+ participants and take 2 days to complete.
Again with the double elimination format, most or all matches in the main tournament are the best 4 games of 7. The longer matches allow the more skilled player to adapt and achieve victory. Players are seeded based on the Mitic rating system. By the end of the first night, strong Professionals and Masters are playing high intensity matches, drawing large crowds of fans and players watching closely to see who will advance.
Sadly, as must happen, some people do lose their second match and are eliminated from competition. But for these folks, the real fun has just begun. Because of the bracketing methodology used, everybody eliminated in the same round goes into a sub tournament or what we call a "spinoff" tournament. Because all players in each spinoff tournament were eliminated in the same round, the skill level is very close. And so then comes the battle to win the bracket, and the trophy, and prize money. With the skills levels being all but equal, the battle is as intense as the finals itself. Matches get longer, and the players who didn't make it to the big prize get to battle for a different opportunity.
Day two features the top 16 best players in the world competing for the prized World Champion spot. Nothing you have ever witnessed will prepare you for grand master level airhockey. Intensely fast and yet controlled. Calculating and yet opportunistic. Poised and yet aggressive. No other sport in the world can get an onlookers heart racing like the intensity of a match at 3 games each at 6-6 in the 7th game and one player attempting the winning shot and his opponent digs deep in her concentration and calculations to try to capture the puck. As the day wears on, the matches slow down, and the quality of play becomes - extraordinary.
As the event unwinds to the final two competitors, only one truth remains: Ibi volo existus unus solus. (There can be only one.)
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