Going into the PRP Nineball Open last weekend (Sept. 14-18) at the Exe Boston Hotel in Zaragoza, Spain, the struggle for a 3rd place spot on the Mosconi Cup’s European team, defined, as of August 31, by the Nineball World Rankings, was something of a race between Austria’s Mario He and Spain’s Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz. Both made it undefeated through two separate knockout rounds of the 128-entrant field in Spain. They both went on, undefeated to the finals where Sanchez-Ruiz prevailed to claim the event title, his fourth major title of the year.
With the USA’s Shane Van Boening and Germany’s Joshua Filler holding the top two spots in those Nineball World Rankings and being too far ahead in the rankings to be unseated, each Mosconi Cup team will select two more from the list at the conclusion of the final three ranking events; The Euro Tour Dynamic Billiards Slovenia Open in Lasko, Slovenia (Oct. 1-3), the Sandcastle 9-Ball Open at Sandcastle Billiards in Edison, NJ (Oct. 6-8) and the US Open Pool Championship at Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic City, NJ (Oct. 10-15). With Austria’s Albin Ouschan, who did not compete in Spain, currently in the #3 position in the World Rankings and in the driver’s seat to claim a second spot on the Mosconi Cup team, the third selected seat continues to be a struggle between Sanchez-Ruiz (currently #4) and He (#5). Though at the moment, Sanchez-Ruiz has a commanding lead and seems likely to draw the third pick, it might well continue into next week’s Slovenia Open and depending on whether the two opt for a trip to New Jersey afterwards, it could end up on this side of the Atlantic.
Sanchez-Ruiz and He emerged from separate brackets to advance to the PRP Nineball Open’s final draw of 32. Sanchez-Ruiz, after being awarded an opening round bye, defeated two of his fellow countrymen, Manuel Fernandez and Gabriel Carral 9-2 to qualify for the single-elimination Phase Two (well over 50% of the field was from Spain). He was joined from the winners’ side of the bracket by countrymen Jose Alberto Delgado and Jose Castillo, Lithuania’s Pijus Labutis, Poland’s Wiktor Zielinski and Mieszko Fortunski, Marc Bijsterbosch from the Netherlands and Hungary’s Oliver Szolnoki.
In the other Phase 1 bracket, Mario He (also awarded a bye) defeated Spaniards Amalia Matas 9-4 and Mayte Ropero 9-7 to be among the winners’ side competitors to advance. Germany’s Ralf Souquet was on that list, too, as were Poland’s Konrad Juszczyszyn, Switzerland’s Ronald Regli, Spain’s David Alcaide and Jonas Souto, Estonia’s Denis Grabe and, also in the running for that 3rd spot on the Mosconi Cup team, behind He, Alex Kazakis from Greece.
Sanchez-Ruiz’ toughest battle advancing to the event’s quarterfinals came in the opening round of the single-elimination Round 2, when Francisco Diaz chalked up eight racks against him. From there, it was relatively smooth sailing through Ivan Nunez 11-3 for Sanchez-Ruiz to arrive at his quarterfinal matchup versus Delgado. He, on the other hand, began his single-elimination advancement with two double hill matches against Portugal’s Sara Rocha and Spain’s Iker Echeverria, which he successfully negotiated to face Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Sanjin Pehlivanovic. Three competitors lurking behind Sanchez-Ruiz and He on the rankings list, appeared in the other two quarterfinals. Kazakis, immediately below He on the list, faced Denis Grabe (in the 20s on the list), as Szolnoki, immediately below Kazakis, met up with Zielinski, immediately behind him.
Sanchez-Ruiz downed Delgado 11-5 and in the semifinals, picked up Zielenski, who’d eliminated Szolnoki 11-8. He defeated Pehlivanovic 11-2 and drew Kazakis, who’d eliminated Grabe 11-7.
Assuring their spots on the rankings list, Sanchez-Ruiz and He advanced to the finals; Sanchez-Ruiz 11-5 over Zielinski and He 11-2 over Kazakis.
It was clear from the outset of the finals that Sanchez-Ruiz and He were playing for more than bragging rights at their local pub. He broke the initial rack and ran the table to open the scoring. Sanchez-Ruiz broke and won the second to create the first of only two ties in the race to 13.
Sanchez-Ruiz won the next four to go ahead 5-1, at which point the two of them embarked on a series of runs that narrowed that lead down to between two and three racks. He got within a single rack three times in that stretch, at 6-5, 7-6 and 8-7, but He’s win of rack #15 opened the door for Sanchez-Ruiz to head on out on a four-match run that put him on the hill, ahead by five at 12-7.
He, though, came right back and matched Sanchez-Ruiz’ longest run of the game at the start, winning five racks to force a single deciding game. He broke, but left himself with a low-percentage shot at the 1-ball, sitting north of and at a sharp angle to a side pocket. He played safe and began a two-ball safety battle that took up nearly half of the final match-time. Sanchez-Ruiz broke it up after He had given him an opening on the 2-ball that also opened the table. Sanchez-Ruiz ran them from there and claimed the event title.
The battle for the two remaining European Mosconi Cup slots (not counting the coach’s two wild-card picks), moves on to Lasko, Slovenia.
Joshua and Pia Filler will meet in Winners Qualification tomorrow after the Posh and Becks of Pool overcame two matches apiece to make it through day two of the inaugural European Open Pool Championship at Hotel Esperanto, Fulda in Germany live on the Matchroom Pool Facebook/YouTube and Matchroom.Live.
Joshua began his tournament with an emphatic 9-0 win over GJ Oyangoren in one of the opening encounters of the day to make the winners’ side whilst Pia came from behind to defeat Talal Abdullah Shaheen in a hill-hill finish. The stars were beginning to align as the evening got into full swing as Pia got her second W of the day, this time against Ramazan Akdag 9-6.
At the same time as Pia’s win, Joshua was under the cosh, and 5-0 down to fellow compatriot and former sparring partner Raphael Wahl. Wahl reached the hill first at 8-4 and it looked like he would get the better of Joshua like old times but the pair have had different paths since their juniors days. Joshua showed his grit and experience with over 100 fans crowding around their table to see the conclusion as the recent UK Open and World Pool Masters champion closed out an impressive comeback to steal it and meet his wife Pia for the first time at this level of the sport.
“I am super excited. I really wanted to play Josh in this tournament. I was fighting hard to get here and now here we are. I can’t wait.” – Pia Filler
Pia Filler (Taka Wu – Matchroom Multi Sport)
“That match was almost in jepordy. I knew she was winning and I was sown. I was more nervous then. We wanted to play each other. I gave it my best and luckily I won it. I was 6-1 down. I’ve known Raph since we were juniors. He won a few finals against me and I won a few against him. The atmosphere was crazy. I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. I got luck on my side in the end. I am delighted to be through.” – Joshua Filler
“We just do business as usual. It’s no secret he’s the love of my life but tomorrow he will be my biggest rival for 90 minutes.” – Pia Filler
Tony Drago returned to the Nineball arena with a win over Ivan Nunez Perez 9-2 before losing out to Sanjin Pehlivanovic to be sent to the Losers side whilst the Bosnian moves into Winners’ Qualification tomorrow. Neils Feijen overcame Harold Stolka and Flavian Glont to make lightwork of his day to meet José Alberto Delgado tomorrow for a spot in the Last 64.
There was no sign of jet lag for Nineball World No.1 and World Champion Shane Van Boening who beat Martin Breuer and Aref Awadi 9-1 and 9-0 respectively to barely break sweat and set up a Winners’ Qualification match live on the Matchroom Pool Facebook page with Jani Uski tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile, Francisco Sanchez Ruiz fresh off the back of snapping off another EuroTour title on Monday beat Christian Prager and Ioan Ladanyi to be one away from the Last 64 and compatriot David Alcaide reached the same stage with wins over Fabian Breuer and Great Britain’s Benji Buckley.
Hometown favourite Thorsten Hohmann kept his tournament alive with a 8-2 win over Cyprus’ Antonis Brabin whilst German legend Ralf Souquet stayed alive after defeating Veronika Ivanovskaia 8-5 on the losers bracket.
NB 2:30pm – Jayson Shaw (GBR) vs Bader Alawadhi (KUW) – Winners’ Qualification
NB 4:00pm – TBC
NB 6:30pm – TBC
The final two days are available on Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland, DAZN in the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland as well as on Viaplay in Scandinavia and the Baltics and various other broadcasters worldwide including Matchroom.Live in relevant countries. See the full where to watch list here.
Thorsten Hohmann (Taka Wu – Matchroom Multi Sport)
The opening day of the inaugural European Open Pool Championship at Hotel Esperanto, Fulda in Germany live on the Matchroom Pool Facebook/YouTube and Matchroom.Live is complete.
256 players headed to Fulda with hopes and dreams in Thorsten Hohmann’s hometown of becoming the first-ever European Open winner as they look for their name to be etched into the record books and a share of the $200,000 prize fund as the Opening Round, Winners and Losers Round 1 got underway with 36 players heading home.
Hohmann got action underway live on the Matchroom Pool Facebook match in front of a raucous home crowd looking to see their man get off to the best of starts but it wasn’t to be as Senharip Azar upset the apple cart to secure an unlikely victory. The 9-5 defeat for Hohmann meant he faces the gruelling task of four matches to make it through to the last 64 and he ticked one of those off to defeat Muhummed Daydat 8-2 and keep hometown glory alive.
“I can only give my best. I would’ve liked to have won my first match with all my Fulda people behind me. It was amazing to see. My opponent played well, and I made a few mistakes. I wasn’t as relaxed as I should’ve been. I didn’t feel nervous but there’s always a tightness, so you’re not relaxed. We have some history in Fulda for pool, we used to play in the German Bundesliga. We always had 100 spectators there are some pool fans here. We hope to mobilise some of the Fulda crowd who are perhaps not pool fans.” – Hohmann after progressing to Losers Round 2.
Compatriot Ralf Souquet had the home backing against Juri Pisklov in an all-German affair that saw the latter take the victory 9-5 no part down to a huge 4-rail kick on the four ball in one of the shots of the year let alone day or tournament. That defeat for Souquet appeared to spur him on though as he whitewashed Rafał Stępnik 8-0 to keep his tournament going.
Two-time Mosconi Cup MVP Jayson Shaw survived an early scare in the morning against Ingo Lamberti to win 9-7 before making light work of Cristian Surdea of Romania 9-1 to book his spot in Winners Qualification on Thursday. There wasn’t such fortune for US Open runner-up Aloysius Yapp who was pushed onto the losers’ side of the draw by German Valery Kuloyants.
Finland’s Jani Uski announced himself onto the big stage at the recent World Cup of Pool alongside Mika Immonen and his stock is ever-growing after booking his spot in Winners Qualification thanks to wins over Tobias Hirt and Chris Melling 9-1/9-4 respectively.
Melling is not the only big name to be alongside Yapp on the losers’ bracket with Dimitri Jungo, Robbie Capito, and Matt Edwards all facing the prospect of Losers Round 2 tomorrow.
Action continues tomorrow morning from 10 am – see the full list of matches upcoming below
The final two days are available on Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland, DAZN in the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland as well as on Viaplay in Scandinavia and the Baltics and various other broadcasters worldwide including Matchroom.Live in relevant countries. See the full where to watch list here.
