Wiktor Zielinski (Taka G Wu/Matchroom Multi Sport)
Only 16 remain at the World Pool Championship 2023 in Kielce, Poland with the likes of Shane Van Boening, Albin Ouschan, and Francisco Sanchez Ruiz all looking to make a run to the finish line live on Sky Sports, Viaplay, DAZN, Matchroom.Live and TV networks worldwide.
Van Boening came up against his stiffest test yet in his mission to keep ahold of the title he won 12 months ago with a victory of Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp in a 11-9 win that saw the South Dakota Kid struggle to shake off the 2022 US Open runner-up. 2021 champion Ouschan was taken to the dying ember by Daniel Maciol of Poland to secure his passage whilst Sanchez Ruiz got the better of former world champion Thorsten Hohmann to book his place in the Last 16.
Mohammad Soufi, Denis Grabe, Max Lechner, and Wu Kun Lin all progressed to the penultimate days with wins over Mika Immonen, Nguyễn Anh Tuấn, Johann Chua, and Japan’s Naoyuki Oi. Neils Feijen meanwhile came from behind to beat Petri Makkonen of Finland as he hunts for a second world title.
The final moments of the day were John Morra‘s to be had with a remarkable 11-10 thriller win over Jayson Shaw from 6-4 and 10-8 down. Shaw had his opportunities to seal the win but a poor safety let Morra in to complete a huge victory in a World Pool Championship classic. It sees Morra meet Mario He next after the Austrian beat Ko Ping Chung 11-9.
Saturday 4, February – Last 16 from 12:00 pm (CET)
Table 1
Wiktor Zielinski (POL) vs Chang Jung-Lin (TPE)
Shane Van Boening (USA) vs Duong Quoc Hoang (VIE)
Table 2
Albin Ouschan (AUT) vs Mateusz Sniegocki (POL)
NB 2:00pm – John Morra (CAN) vs Mario He (AUT)
NB 3:30pm – Francisco Sanchez Ruiz (ESP) vs Denis Grabe (EST)
Table 3
Max Lechner (AUT) vs Wu Kun Lin (TPE)
NB 2:00pm – Sebastian Batkowski (POL) vs Mohammad Soufi (SYR)
NB 3:30pm – Aleksa Pecelj (SRB) vs Niels Feijen (NED)
Joshua Filler survived being knocked to the loser’s side by Alex Pagulayan on day two of the World Pool Championship 2023 in Kielce, Poland as only 64 remain after two days of action live on Sky Sports, Viaplay, DAZN, Matchroom.Live and TV networks worldwide.
Filler faced Pagulayan early on for a spot in the Last 64 to avoid an extra match in Losers’ Qualification round this evening. The Killer fell to a 9-7 defeat, his second defeat to the Canadian in a matter of days after a loss at the Derby City Classic. It left Filler having to beat Daniele Corrieri to ensure his hunt for a second world title would continue and he did so in emphatic fashion in a 9-1 dismantling. Crucially, defeat to Pagulayan meant Filler lost his seeded position in the bracket ahead of the Last 64 redraw.
Last year’s semi-finalist Abdullah Alyousef suffered a 9-3 defeat to USA hotshot Shane Wolford to be sent home at the first major hurdle whilst Oliver Szolnoki suffered the same fate in a hill-hill finish against Ajdin Piknjac. 2021 runner-up Omar Al-Shaheen struggled for his groove against Denis Grabe as the Estonian came good to knock the 2021 runner-up out the competition. There was frustration for 1996 champion Ralf Souquet also, the Kaiser well beaten by Pole Daniel Maciol in Winners’ Qualification before defeat at the hands of Dimitri Jungo. Home favourite Mieszko Fortunski was also knocked out with the World Pool Masters semi-finalist knocked out by Lars Kuckherm.
The 32 players who qualified through Winners’ Qualification were seeded in the Last 64 redraw against an unseeded player who came through the Losers Qualification matches with Karl Boyes completing the draw with Rachel Casey on the Matchroom Pool YouTube page. Pagulayan and Filler will have to dance again after being drawn against each other whilst defending champion Van Boening will come up against Uski.
Action returns from midday local time tomorrow on Sky Sports in the UK and Ireland, Viaplay in Poland, Scandinavia, the Baltics, and the Netherlands, DAZN in the USA and Italy as well as on Matchroom.Live and broadcasters worldwide. Table 2 and Table 3 are on the Matchroom Pool and Multi Sport YouTube Channels respectively and Viaplay in above listed territories. See where to watch here.
Shane Van Boening (Taka G Wu/Matchroom Multi Sport)
Shane Van Boening will begin the defense of his World Pool Championship title against Japan’s Masato Yoshioka in Kielce, Poland from February 1-5 live on Sky Sports in the UK, Viaplay in Poland, Scandinavia and the Baltics, DAZN in the USA as well as Matchroom.Live and networks worldwide.
The American will look to become only the second player in history to defend the title following in the footsteps of Earl Strickland in a packed arena at Targi Kielce. 46 countries will be represented in the 128-player field as it is whittled down to the Last 64 over the first two days of action before it’s straight knockout to the end where one will claim the $60,000 first-place prize and the world crown.
The draw was completed with the top 64 players from the Nineball World Rankings against an unseeded player from the other 64 in the hat. Standout first-round ties include 2015 world champion Ko Pin Yi facing James Aranas of the Philippines whilst 2022 semi-finalist Abdullah Alyousef faces the tricky prospect of Johann Chua. 2004 world champion Alex Pagulayan was unseeded and will meet Michael Schneider.
World Cup of Pool winner David Alcaide takes on Billy Thorpe and Shane Wolford‘s mission for a spot on Team USA at the 2023 Mosconi Cup takes on Pia Filler. Francisco Sanchez Ruiz had a year to remember last year and will begin his Nineball campaign against So Shaw of Iran.
Double elimination matches are all race to 9, with all matches from the Last 64 a race to 11 except the final, which is a race to 13.
Table 1 will be live on broadcasters worldwide including Sky Sports in the UK, Viaplay in Poland, Scandinavia, Baltics, and the Netherlands, DAZN in the USA, Canada, and Italy, as well as on Matchroom.Live and networks worldwide. See where to watch here.
Table 2 will be live on Viaplay in selected territories as well as on Matchroom.Live and the Matchroom Pool YouTube channel.
Table 3 will be live on Viaplay in selected territories as well as on Matchroom.Live and the Matchroom Multi Sport YouTube channel.
The first day is complete at the Dynamic Billard Petrich Open in Bulgaria as 157 players set forth on their quest for the fourth Euro Tour title of the year. With just the semi-finals and final taking place on the final day, Monday, there are a lot of matches to get through and it certainly pays to stay on the winners’ side of the draw.
One young player who won three from three today was the Netherland’s 17-year-old Yannick Pongers. The Dutchman has already enjoyed a
wonderful stay in Petrich having won two golds – 8-ball and 9-ball – at the recently completed European Pool Championships for Youth, and he started where he left off with three wins from three including a victory over Klenti Kaci which wasn’t without some controversy.
Commented Yannick, “It was a very good day for me. In fact, it was the first Euro Tour event where I’ve won three matches in a row and I beat Kaci which was a tough match. At 5-5 he missed a 9 ball then when he started racking, he smashed the 1 ball on the table, so the referee gave me an extra rack for unsportsmanlike behaviour.
“Then he gave up basically, unscrewed his cue and left the venue. My goal here is last 32 at least, I guess. We’ll see if I make it but I’m already happy with what I did but let’s see how far I go,” he added.
Another young player to stay on the winners’ side was Hungary’s Oliver Szolnoki who finally made it through after a nerve-wracking contest against Germany’s come-backing Lars Kuckherm. Szolnoki lead 7-2 with the win looking a formality, but Kuckherm plugged away as his play improved and he dragged it back to 7-7 before the Hungarian finished the match off at the death.
“I went up 7-2 and my break was working perfect and then I don’t know how, I missed an easy shot and then the match totally turned,” said a relieved Szolnoki.
“Every time he missed, I didn’t get a shot after that but he played well also and took his chances. I thought if I could just make a couple of break and runs, I would win the match but it didn’t work and somehow it was 7-7. In the end, I’m glad I’m through and survived this match.
“I saw some good signs – up to 7-2 I played very well, I think. Also, at 7-7 I managed to clear two tables under pressure so that was a positive but I’ll need to improve tomorrow,” he added.
Players reconvene tomorrow morning at 9am local time where the winners’ side have one more match to reach the last 32 single elimination knockout, while players on the one-loss side have a maximum of four games to reach the knock-out stage.
Play continues down to the final four on Sunday evening with the semi-finals and then the final commencing at 17.00 on Monday.
As well as the prize money, there are Tour ranking points on offer as well as world ranking points, so there is everything to play for. All Euro Tour tournaments are 9-ball and players compete in a double-elimination format, playing down to the last 32 competitors, and then single elimination until the finish. All matches are races to 9 racks with alternate break.
All the matches can be viewed live at www.kozoom.com as well as selected
matches on Facebook Live on the EPBF page. In addition, the semi-finals
and final, played out on Monday night, will be live or highlights on the
following television stations across Europe;
SportKlub HD – Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia,
Bosnia Herzegovina, Greece
Eyecons – Netherlands
SportKlub – Poland
ORF – Austria
B1B Box – Bulgaria
Last night, we concluded the most spectacular Longoni Benelux Open to date. With 240 entries, this sixth edition of the event was the biggest in the series. An incredible field of superb pros, counting no less than seven world champions, in a fierce battle for the championship title, the coveted Longoni cup, the fame and the substantial prize fund.
Yesterday, the elite 'Final 32' lined up some amazing matches. In the early stages of the day, there were already quite some matches worthy of a final, to name but a few:
Ralf Souquet (D) vs Oliver Oliver "the Machine" Ortmann (Official) (D) [3rd round]
By reaching the Final 32, a fantastic achievement in itself, Longoni junior pro Kamila Khodjaeva earned the status of Best Lady, including a prize money bonus.
In the end, eight die hards reached the Quarter Finals. Reigning world 9ball champion Niels Feijen escaped from elimination with hill/hill matches against fellow countryman Nick van den Berg and former world 8ball champion Karl Boyes. Tony Drago, dealt with his opponents in 'Tornado' mode, which put him in the quarters so fast that that he had to wait a long time for all the other matches to catch up. The double knock out stage resulted in the following Quarter Finals:
Former Longoni Benelux Open Champions reached the first Semi Final. While the other saw two German '1. Bundesliga' teammates facing each other in battle:
Andreas Roschkowsky (D) 5-8 Daryl Peach (ENG)
Lars Kuckherm (D) 3-8 Niels Feijen (NL)
In the end, the conclusion of the event was a revanche match of the 2012 Final. This time, the pool gods favoured Niels Feijen, who had his more than eager eyes on nothing else but the prize. Eventually, 'The Terminator' had to win the Longoni Benelux Open. Everybody expected him to. After all, he is the event's MVP.
Daryl Peach (ENG) 3-8 Niels Feijen (NL)
((( Niels Feijen is the 2014 Longoni Benelux Open Champion )))
In the meantime, the 2014 Longoni Benelux Open Ladies Side Event's Final was still in progress. It became a double hill thriller. Martine Christiansencould have finished it. Instead, she left the 9ball rattling in the jaws of the corner pocket. The cool and collected Kamila Khodjaeva grabbed the opportunity with both hands and pocketed the last two balls for the win. Double success for the fresh new Longoni team member.
There was no better scenario than this for Longoni cues. A double win, the most successful and fulfilling event in the series and smiling faces, throughout the long weekend.
And last, but not least, I want to thank all the players and spectators for attending in great numbers, Thurston Rotterdam and its great staff for hosting the event, Kem Sen and his www.ebillard.fr team for putting together a fantastic live stream, the tournament staff – Alain Desmet, Tom Penrose,Stefan Osnabrug and guest master photographer JP Parmentier – and the people who helped – Crelis Hogchem and Johan Bakermans – all our partners in this venture: Hotel One, King Kong Hostel, Sumo, KNBB, Kamui,Serge Das Billiards, Loontjens Biljarts, Iwan Simonis, Saluc for their Aramith pool balls and Rotterdam Topsport.
A.Moussati, M.Sawicki, N.Feijen and H.Charalampidis
Saturday morning we started off with the MAIN 9ball EVENT…
1st four groups of 24 started off at 09:00h. All went well as nobody got sanctioned with a penalty, neither did anyone forfeit or no-show.
Group A saw one of the favorites Ivo Aarts sail through to the 2nd Winners round with wins over Kaylash Persad, Olivier Vandenbohede. In the 3rd round however he got beaten by UK’s Tony Burton who did not lose a match to qualify for the last64. Marek Derek, Serge Das and Tobias Hoiß all did the same thing by defeating Kadir Turku, Hoa Nguyen, Nicolas Georgopoulos and Tom Penrose. Three of them eventually qualified for the Knock-Out stage themselves by winning their subsequent matches. So did Ivo Aarts in the end.
Group B’s 2nd Winners Round had some strong matches and some surprises as Luxemburg’s Sebastian Beuel beat German 1.Bundesliga playing Klaudio Kerec 8-4 and Karl Boyes did the same thing to Sixpocket’s admin Florian Scholl. Both losers redeemed themselves in the 3rd Losers Round by defeating Joerie van den Broeck and Stefan Sprangers, the latter one not being as slouch. Through the winners side Daryl Peach, Karl Boyes, Bartek Skoniecki and Konrad Juszczyszyn qualified for the Last64 without losing a match. From the Losers round Carlos Cabello, Raphael Keusen, Sebastian Beuel and Klaudio Kerec joined them. Unfortunately some good players went down, like: Alain Da Costa and Maurice Houben.
Group C had some strong players, winning their 1st matches with ease; Niels Feijen beat greek player Theodore Bitsaxakis 8-2, Wojtek Trajdos did the same thing to UK’s Tom Stavely. Aziz Moussati lost to strong playing Benji Buckley 3-8 and after that 7-8 to Peter Lau. This saw him drop out of the 9ball. He said he could not focus on playing because of all the things that went on regarding organization etc. I myself had the same problem. Further in this group’s losers side Matthias Blehs got rid of Walter Hottgenroth and Benjamin Baier. On the winners side Niels handed a donut to Trajdos and Stephan Cohen beat Marcel Fortunski to both qualify for the Last64. Tobias Bongers and Benji Buckley sent Kyle Van den Bosch and Martin Steinlage to the last losers round. 4 players took their last chance to qualify; Trajdos beat Peter Lau 8-4, Bitsaxakis – Steinlage 8-3, Fortunski did the same thing to Del Sim. Matthias Blehs handed out the second donut of the group to Kyle van den Bosch.
Group D featured some strong playing German Bundesliga players; Stefan Nolle and Valery Kuloyants who got rid of their opponents Gijs van Westebrugge and Edward Werlemann pretty quickly in the 1st round. 2nd Winners Round matches went pretty quickly as well when Mieszko Fortunski beat Lex Wellens 8-0, Tony Drago vs. Jan Van Lierop 8-1. Mieszko continued his strong form by winning 8-0 again in his following match against Michael Kasper. Other favorites did not have that same luck as Tony Drago lost to strong youngster Francisco Sanchez Ruiz. Ralf Souquet showed Stefan Nolle who’s boss with a score of 8-5 and Valery did the same thing to Konrad Piekarski. From the losers round the following players eventually went on to qualify for the Last64: Tony Dargo over Sean Dennis with a score of 8-1, Stefan Nolle beat Jan van Lierop 8-2, Konrad Piekarski against Lex Wellens 8-4.
In the afternoon the last 4 groups started their matches, some of the previous groups had to qualify the next morning some of them were done..
Group E surprised a bit when Micha Beuriot beat Guy Buss in the first round and one of the favs Imran Majid got beaten by Nicolas Baumanns. I got my donut handed to me by Noel Bruynooghe.. Couldn’t focus on my game with all the stuff happening around me and had to get comfortable with my new cue as well. Noel played a very good match though, missing maybe 1 ball the entire match. He later on went and qualified for the Last64 by beating Sebastian Fuhrmann. One of the other strong favorites Mateusz Sniegocki sailed through with a score of 8-0 in his 2nd and 3rd match as well. Fast playing Marko Vogel struggled a bit but in the end got through with a hill-hill against Mario Stahl, who himself also eventually got through by beating Lennaert Speijker 8-1 in the losers round. Imran Majid, Robin Cripps, Anthony Wever also went on to qualify winning their matches in the 4th losers round.
Group F consisted of some great players like Oliver Ortmann and Juan Carlos Exposito, who met each other in the latter stages. Oliver first beat fellow countryman Michael Heinz with a big score of 8-0. Think Michael couldn’t get his rhythm going as he normally played way better than that. Norman Bakker surprisingly beat JCE 8-1, Greek fury Xrhstos Davetas beat Thomas Aschauer 8-4 and strong playing Marc Bijsterbosch beat Sven Wenkheimer with easy and a final score of 8-2. In the 3rd Winners round some big matches emerged like Ramazan Dincer vs. Ortmann (8-6), Elliot Sanderson vs. Marc Bijsterbosch (8-5) and Adrian Borowiec vs. Davetas (8-4). So now the losers qualification had some great thrillers going where Exposito met with Ortmann and beat him 8-5, which caused a bit of an upset. Also Hector del Amo Garcia who lost his 1st match got through to the last round and bear Sven Pauritsch to qualify. Marc Bijsterbosch also redeemed himself and beat Waikit Kwok after a hard battle. Davetas was the last one to set his score and got through.
Group G featured some big names like Mario He, David Alcaide and Phil Burford. But also strong formed Joshua Filler who had made a name for himself at DCC by winning the 9ball Banks against Nick v/d Berg in the final. 1st round saw no surprises and all big names went through to the next one. Then we had a big match-up when Mario He drew David Alcaide in the next round and beat him on the hill. David eventually got through to the last round and got through. Joshua showed that age does not matter and shot his way through Phil Burford at the arena with a score of 8-6. Marco Teutscher also went through over Jimmy Worung (8-5). In the 3rd winner round more surprises came when Daniel Kandi beat strong favorite Mario He. Furthermore Mark Lunn beat OC Chan, Teutscher beat Jelle Kijlstra and Joshua Filler knocked his countryman Clemens Phillipen to the losers round. Last chance to qualify for the Last64.. Phil Burford, Julian Kortüm, previously mentioned David Alcaide and Ralf Mrnka did so.
Group H was the final one and had 2013 Champion Nick Van Den Berg starting his journey to defend his crown. Started off with a bye and then went on to qualify for the Last64 by beating German Bundesliga player Kevin Becker and Belgian WCOP player Moritz Lauwereyns in his 3rd match. More strong players started off well; Huidji See beat Female player Vivien Schade 8-0, Jakob Belka vs. Olivier van Loteringen went down with 8-2. 2nd round winners side had some good matches when Dennis Jansen beat Hanno Bröcker on the Hill, Wojtek Szewczyk knocked his countryman Jakob Belka to the losers-side and youngster Aaron Vancoppenolle did the same thing to strong Female Chantal Manske. Last winners round saw all the favorites go through; NvdB, Szewczyk, See and Dennis Janssen, all with ease. Losers side saw Lars Kuckherm, Belka, Becker and Mauwereyns go through.
So that was it for the groups.. Now on to the Last 64 of the 9ball MAIN-EVENT and the 9ball DROP-OUT Challenge.
Around 10:00h on Sunday some matches of the Knock-Out stage began early, but most started around 12:00h.
Some noticeable wins were Moritz Lauwereyns beating his former WCOP team-mate Serge Das with a score of 9-5. Phil Burford beat his countryman Karl Boyes 9-7. Ivo Aarts beat Mateusz Sniegocki 9-8 after trailing 8-6. Konrad Piekarski beat Noel Bruynooghe with an easy 9-4. Norman Bakker got close with Matthias Blehs but beat him on the hill. Raphael Keusen beat strong playing Daniel Kandi on the hill as well. So did Carlos Cabello vs. Mark Lunn.
On to the Last32 where more surprises came along when Wojtek Szewczyk beat Huidji See with ease, final score of 9-5. Moritz Lauwereyns kept his form and beat last year’s Runner-Up Marek Derek 9-6. Konrad Juszczyszyn also shocked everyone when he kept his nerve on the hill against Phil Burford and beat him. More strong play by Ivo Aarts, Imran Majid, Ralf Souquet, Konrad Piekarski, Joshua Filler, Nick van den Berg, Niels Feijen, Tobias Hoiß who all went through to the Last16.
Surely now at this stage you would think only the strong favorites would emerge.. but no, Moritz Lauwereyns continued his form and beat Tobias Hoiß 9-7. Konrad Piekarski being the underdog against Ivo Aarts showed who’s who and beat him 9-5. Mario He did not disappoint and beat Juszczyszyn 9-5 as well. But the biggest surprises of them all was Wojtek Szewczyk taking his revenge on Nick van den Berg from last year at the quarter-finals. After trailing a couple of games Wojtek in the end prevailed and beat the struggling Nick 9-7. Fair to say Nick was dealing with some personal issues on the side. Nevertheless a great performance by the young Pole. More names that went through to the Last8 were Filler, Majid, Feijen and a player I would like to call the new ‘DARK HORSE’ ; Marcel Fortunski. Did not know Marcel had so much in him.. he went through to this stage by beating some big names in my book; Ramazan Dincer (5x 1.Bundesliga Champion), Normal Bakker (strong Dutch player), Elliot Sanderson (GB9 Tour) .. Well DONE!
At this stage our well prized DROP-OUT Challenge began, this tournament was created to let players have another change at some good prize-money and to let them enjoy our venue some more. Where at other tournament after losing twice you didn’t have a chance to redeem yourself.. @ DCC players still did! The Tournament had the same format and rules but shorter races and single knock-out.. so fast play and surprise results were expected. When people found out that the tournament was opened to more than 64 players, whey immediately signed up and the final field was 80.
Moritz again shocked everyone on the TV Table and beat strong favorite Mario He. Feijen showed who boss against Majid by beating him 9-5. Piekarski went on 6-1 against Marcel Fortunski in about 20 minutes but then lost focus and let the young player get back at him a little bit but in the end closed it off with a final score of 9-7. Joshua Filler kept cool against Szewczyk to beat him 9-5.
Semis both played on the TV tables, the match-ups were; Feijen vs. Lauwereyns and Filler vs. Piekarski. Both matches quickly showed who the better players was on Sunday. Even through the youngster match had a bigger score it was over pretty quick cus of fast run-outs and no safety battles. Niels and Moritz took a while longer as tactics came into play. Niels finally closed the deal with a 9-2 win.
So Holland vs. Germany in the FINAL! Niels quickly showed that the break in 9ball ET Style is mastered by those who regularly play the format and broke and ran most of his racks. Joshua struggled to get runs round because he lost his cue-ball a lot. Niels in front is unstoppable, I knew that from the get-go. Proved me right by winning and becoming the NEW 2014 ‘PREDATOR’ Deurne City Classic® CHAMPION !! Congrats Niels Feijen
Though "MASTER OF THE TABLE" title goes to Joshua Filler ! Winning the 9ball banks, 14.1 Shootout and becoming Runner-up in the 9ball MAIN-EVENT!
Former World 9-Ball Champion Peach also among the final four
Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina: Stephane Cohen (FRA) powered past Lars Kuckherm (GER) with 8:5.
The older the better – that is definitely true for wine. But it might also be true for Cohen. The French plays an amazing tournament in Sarajevo this week. He plays accurate and precise with an absolute killer instinct. His opponent Kuckherm also played great so far but in the quarter-final, he had nothing to set against Cohen's performance. Cohen will meet Tomasz Kaplan (POL) in the semi-final.
Kaplan crushed Ivica Putnik (CRO) in his quarter-final match clearly with 8:1. The match was a one-man show. Kaplan played as solid as always while Putnik struggled. He could not find his match and was no opposition for tough Kaplan.
Daryl Peach (GBR) is playing in the second semi-final this afternoon. In an old-boys-clash, he terminated Vegar Kristiansen (NOR) with 8:4. It took a while before Peach got going. He was already trailing 0:3 before his engine warmed up. But then Peach ran away on the fast lane, leaving Kristiansen behind with 8:4 and the 5th rank.
Peach will face another Polish player in the semi-final match at 16:00 CET. He will play Mateusz Sniegocki who overcame Albin Ouschan (AUT) with 8:5.
The semi-finals will be played one after the other. The first semi-final will begin at 14:00 CET, the other one at 16:00 CET.
The event is hosted by the European Governing Body for Pool, the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) and organized by International Billiard Promotion (IBP). For further information and reference please go to the federation website http://www.eurotouronline.eu or contact our press office.
Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina: In an exciting thriller, Mateusz Sniegocki (POL) overpowered Tomasz Kaplan (POL) with 8:6.
Both Polish players managed to win their semi-finals and made the final of the Dynamic Billard Bosnia & Hercegovina Open an all Polish affair. Kaplan defeated Stephan Cohen (FRA) by the skin of his teeth with 8:7. Cohen could have won the semi-final but he missed a 6-ball at 7:7. Sniegocki got the better of Daryl Peach (GBR) with 8:5 in the other semi-final. All spotlights were now on the two Polish players who would fight it out on the final table. Sniegocki got the far better start. He seemed to be much fitter than Kaplan who seemed to be a bit tired. After five racks the scoreboard showed a 4:1 lead for Sniegocki. Though Kaplan had a longer break between his semi-final and the final match, Sniegocki seemed to be more "in the zone". One of Kaplan's problems was his break shot. He somehow could not make a ball on the break anymore. Whenever he left a possible situation for Sniegocki, he got punished by Sniegocki either running out or allowing him with a pretty good safety position to the table. But Kaplan found his way back into the match. He took a time-out and refocussed. Suddenly, the distance between the two was shrunk to one rack only. Sniegocki was still leading 6:5 but he could feel Kaplan fighting his way back into the match. And when the pressure increased, Sniegocki also made mistakes. In the 12th rack, he tried to play a safety with the 1-ball but accidentally pocketed the 6-ball when doing so. The position of the balls was bad and according to the rules, Kaplan had the choice to either accepting the table or giving the shot back to Sniegocki. Kaplan put Sniegocki back to the table and forced another error onto him. Sniegocki committed the error and Kaplan had the chance to tie the match at 6:6. But instead of leveling the match, Kaplan missed an easy 5-ball and left it hanging over the pocket for Sniegocki. What a drama after that terrific comeback! That serious lapse brought Sniegocki on the hill with 7:5 and his own break shot coming up. As if there has not yet been enough drama between the two friends, Sniegocki scratched on his break shot and Kaplan came back to the table with ball in hand. He cleared the table to turn the score to 6:7. The tension could not have been higher at that point in time. The audience was captured by the high class performance of these two players. In the next rack, Kaplan broke and ended up dry with no ball being pocketed. All balls were nicely spread and Sniegocki had an easy shot at the 1-ball. That was the end for Kaplan. Sniegocki ran all balls and claimed his first Euro-Tour title, winning the final match with 8:6.
This concludes the coverage of the Dynamic Billard Bosnia & Hercegovina Open Euro-Tour 2013. During the recent four weeks, a total of 22 tournament were played here in Radon Plaza Hotel in Sarajevo. The final event will be the qualifier for the World Cup of Pool tomorrow where two out of ten participating teams will make it to the main event. We will report about the action. You can also follow these matches LIVE on www.kozoom.com/en/pool-billiard/
The event was hosted by the European Governing Body for Pool, the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) and organized by International Billiard Promotion (IBP). For further information and reference please go to the federation website http://www.eurotouronline.eu or contact our press office.
