After an afternoon of tough competition, the final 16 of the World Pool Series 8-Ball Classic Championship is officially set.
The remaining competitors were re-drawn after three rounds of play earlier today. All eight matches will be played this evening and divided into two sets – with four taking place at 6:30 p.m. local time and the remaining contests beginning at 9:30 p.m. The early matches include Marc Bijsterbosch taking on Chris Melling, Wojciech Szewczyk facing Albin Ouschan, Ruslan Chinahov playing Ioan Ladanyi and Fedor Gorst squaring off against Petri Makkonen. The evening matches will feature Mario He going against Eklent Kaci, Darren Appleton facing Daniel Maciol, Alex Kazakis playing Thorsten Hohmann and Jayson Shaw competing against Ciprian Gindac.
Shaw earned a berth in the final 16 with a solid performance against Hohmann. The reigning U.S. Open 9-ball champion used two dry breaks from his opponent and three breaks-and-runs to jump out to an early 7-3 lead. Hohmann cut the lead to 8-4 and had an opportunity to narrow the deficit even more in the 13th game but left the 7-ball in the jaws of the corner pocket.
Shaw, who stated after the match that he’s been working on his 8-ball game in recent weeks to prepare for the event, cleared the table and then won two of the next four games to claim the match
“The last month, I sort of got into a routine. I had fallen out of it,” Shaw said.
Hohmann rebounded with an 11-8 victory against Mieszko Fortunski to reach the final 16.
Notable names who have been eliminated from the tournament include June’s Rasson 10-Ball Championship winner Joshua Filler, World Pool Masters champion Niels Feijen, Denis Grabe, and Ralf Souquet.
After easily winning his lone match on Tuesday against Stanimir Ruslanov, 11-3, Filler suffered his first loss of the tournament to Appleton, 11-6.
“I broke pretty good and I didn’t make any mistakes and that’s the key against him,” said Appleton, adding that he considered himself a big underdog in the match.
The young German didn’t fare much better in his next game against Makkonen, who used a couple of unforced errors to jump out to a 4-2 lead. Makkonen then used a combination of three breaks-and-runs as well as a dry break from Filler to surge ahead 7-2, ultimately winning the contest 11-3.
After receiving a first-round bye Feijen suffered a rare two-and-out, falling to Marek Kudlik of Poland, 11-9, then losing to Wiktor Zielinski in a sudden death shootout.
Grabe, who won April’s Aramith 9-Ball Players Championship, lost his first match of the tournament to Toni Judet, 11-5, then was defeated by Maciol, 11-9, in the third round on the one-loss side.
Souquet, who lost his first-round match yesterday to Szewczyk, 11-8, was defeated by Makkonen, 11-9.
The 8-Ball Classic Championship is the third event of the four-tournament 2018 World Pool Series. This event will be held at the IDM Club in Bucharest, Romania from August 7th to 10th 2018. The World Pool Series is sponsored by Rasson, Aramith, Predator, Iwan Simonis, Tiger, and Kamui. Our suppliers and partners are Billiards Digest, CueScore, Outsville, and the WPA.
For more information on the World Pool Series, please visit www.worldpoolseries.com.
Follow the World Pool Series on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldpoolseries
Twitter: @WorldPoolSeries
Instagram: @WorldPoolSeries
