French hope will meet Chawki from Sweden to battle out the 10-ball crown
Tuesday, 02 August 2011: In a match that was determined by nervousness and many errors by both players, Alain Da Costa (FRA) finally defeated Mihkel Rehepapp (EST) with 7:4.
The start of the match was as expected. Rehepapp was the favourite on paper and he ran the first rack to take a 1:0 lead over his French opponent. But then there seemed to be another player at the table. Rehepapp continuously missed shots and played bad positions, scratched and went for wrong shots. Da Costa was able to benefit from that and took rack after rack off the Estonian. When Rehepapp realized that he had to change something in his game, the score was already 5:1 in favour of Da Costa. Rehepapp tried to fight back but his self-confidence that could be watched during the week so far seemed to be extinguished. He was able to close the gap a little bit more making the score 4:5. But then he again played bad shots while Da Costa was able to perform a bit better and run the required racks. 7:4 was the final score in favour of Da Costa.
He will meet Jim Chawki (SWE) in the final of the juniors competition who eliminated straight pool European Champion Bence Varga (HUN) with a clear 7:2 triumph. Chawki is definitely the favourite player for that final.
In the pupils division, Tian Zhang (SWE) handed a doughnut to Andrey Seroshtan and defeated him 6:0. In the second semi-final, Vitaly Pavlukhin (RUS) kicked the last German hope Nine Andreuzzi out of the event with a 6:5 victory.
The final in the girls division will be an all-Russian affair again. Nataliya Seroshtan won against Kamila Khodjaeva (BEL) with 5:2 while Darya Sirotina remained victorious over Oliwia Czuprynska (POL) with the same result.
