Seeded players start stirring up the field while the first upsets reach tournament

Euro-Tour Nr. 1 ranked topstar Karl Boyes from England just made it through his first match; German former World Champion Ralf Souquet falls to Serbia's Sandor Tot

Thursday, February 10, 2011: The first sensation has occurred to this year's Dynamic France Open. Germany's Ralf Souquet has lost dramatically clear to Sandor Tot from Novi Sad, Serbia with 4-9 in his first round match. The beginning looked like it would be business as usual for the German. He went up 2-0 when he misses a supposedly easy 3-ball and gives his opponent the chance to get to the table. "It just isn't me", says the likeable player from Manching, Germany, when asked about the reasons for his clear loss. "I have some health problems with my shoulder since last November, but that does not excuse the easy mistakes I make. I have no idea what goes wrong with my game at the moment. I started out well before I missed that easy shot in the third rack. From then on, I made more mistakes and things went for Sandor." The match was loaded with tactical safety play from both players. "I love to play the game that way. In the end, my safety shots turned out to be better than Ralf's." Asked about his opponent's easy mistakes, he says: "I also have no explanation for that. Ralf is normally known as a rock solid player." At the score of 4-8 with Souquet at the table, he misses another easy shot on the 8-ball, leaving his opponent two balls to pocket for the victory.

Karl Boyes from England turned out to be more lucky in his first round appearance here in Leader Club Billard today. He had to play Portuguese Bruno Sousa. "I scratched in the second rack and I did not have many more chances from then on until the score was 1-5 respectively 4-7 against me.", Boyes says. "At the score of 4-7, I potted a 3-ball and drew the cue ball back into the 8-ball in order to open up the pack. That was a critical shot and I knew if I fail now, I will be 4-8 down which means my opponent is "on the hill", having only one more game to go. That would have probably destroyed me there; but I perfectly made that shot. This gave me good confidence for the rest of the match." When asked about the match, Sousa says with a smile: "I played him two years ago and I then also lost 8-9 against him. I knew before he is a top player. When I was leading 7-4 today, I took a wrong decision. Instead of playing open and offensive, I chose to play defensively and played safety. I should have tried to run out the rack which would have brought me to the hill." "At 8-8, I missed the key shot and I left an open table for Karl. That was it for me in this match."

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