Mosconi Cup Day One

Team USA came into the opening day of the Party Poker.net Mosconi Cup as huge 2-1 underdogs. But the underdogs are biting Team Europe as they go to sleep tonight with a handsome 4-1 lead. The first win came when the two teams met in the first match in a five-man scotch doubles match that the yanks grabbed 6-4. Then the doubles pair of Johnny Archer and Dennis Hatch defeated Neils Feijen and Darren Appleton by a narrow 6-5 margin.

This 2-0 lead gave the Amercians a huge surge of confidence that prevailed in the singles battle between Shane Van Boening and Mika Immonen. Immonen, who has won almost everything this year, never got anything going in the match and fell to Van Boening 6-3 to increase the American lead to 3 – nil. The second scotch double match of the day saw Oscar Dominquez and Corey Deuel completely dismantle Ralf Souquet  and Thorsten Hohmann 6-2.

The final match of the day had an interesting twist. The two captains got to determine whom the other team would send out to play. European captain Alex Lely chose to nominate Oscar Dominguez for the USA while American captain Nick Varner chose Ralf Souquet. This means that the next three singles players that Europe must use are Darren Appleton, Neils Feijen and Thorsten Hohmann while the yanks have Johnny Archer, Corey Deuel and Dennis Hatch to send into the fray. In the final match Souquet took an early 3-0 lead before Dominguez found his gear and fought back to a double-hill scoreline. But in the last rack Dominguez missed the four ball and left Souquet an easy out for the win.

With the score where it is now at 4-1 the Europeans must take solace in the fact that in 2007 they also trailed 4-1 after the first day before rallying to the cause and coming back to win the cup.