OLIWIA ZALEWSKA (POLAND) claimed her fifth Women’s Euro Tour title in Tallinn today as she came through two hill-hill closing matches and beat Germany’s Veronika Ivanovskaia 7-6 to win the EPBF Estonian Open. It was especially pleasing for Zalewska as she had endured a torrid previous twelve months as she searched for that elusive fifth title.
“I think it was tough because the last couple of Euro Tours I was really, really bad and finished 13th and 17th place, you know, and I was waiting for that moment when I broke through with my game and started to enjoy playing and not be scared,” said Zalewska.
“So, I was really enjoying it and didn’t stress too much of course. It was quite emotional for a few moments. I’m so happy that I played well under pressure in two hill-hill matches.”
With the tournament played down to the final four, Zalewska faced No.1 ranked player, Eyllul Kibaroglu (Turkey) in her semi-final match and dug deep to clinch the match in the deciding rack to move herself into the final.
There she faced Ivanovskaia who had earlier defeated Melanie Sussenguth 7-4 to book her place in the final two. The German has only played in three of the last six Euro Tour events and with a best placed finish of ninth, a final appearance was a welcome return to form.
Played out in the Kalev Sports Hall, the match was always close and inevitably went to a final rack decider. Understandably, the play went back and forth as both girls tried to keep it tight but in the end, it was Zalewska who prevailed.
She said, ”I think my nerves influenced me in a positive way so I could focus more but sometimes when the emotion is too much it can go in another direction. We practice a lot to keep our nerves on a leash so I tried to be focused and tried to play as best as I could. It’s back to the practice table now and I’m looking forward to the next Euro Tour in April.”
It was Ivanovskaia’s second Euro Tour final and her performances throughout will give her hope that the best is yet to come; “I honestly don’t think nerves cost me – I was actually, throughout the whole match, stable, not too nervous and in the moment. I really enjoyed myself out there and in the end, it didn’t really matter to me if I won or lost because I’m working a lot at the moment on the mental side of my game to truly enjoy what I’m doing.”
All the matches can be viewed live by visiting www.epbf.com/tournaments/eurotour/ and clicking on the ‘LIVE’ button. This will take you through to viewing options. In addition, selected matches will be streamed on Facebook Live on the EPBF page.
Results, live scoring, and draw are available at www.epbf.com
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.
The Predator Euro Tour Women reconvenes this weekend in Petrich, Bulgaria with the Petrich Open which gets underway on Saturday 6th August. It is the fourth tournament of the year on the Predator Tour and 29 players representing 15 countries will be competing over the weekend with the semi-finals and final set to take place on Monday afternoon.
Last time out in St Johann im Pongau, Germany’s Ina Kaplan surprised the field with a series of superb performances culminating in a 7-1 victory over Bojana Sarac (Serbia) to lift the title. It was Kaplan’s first Euro Tour triumph in over five years and she will be brimming with new-found confidence when play gets underway on Saturday.
No.1 ranked player Ana Gradisnik of Slovenia, will be looking to defend her position against a smaller field. She is will need to come with her best as her lead at the top is a slender 80 points ahead of second placed Oliwia Zalewska (Poland) and 150 points ahead of Spain’s Amalia Matas in third spot
The ranking is calculated on a rolling six event series with each player dropping the event which yielded them the least points. Once an event is concluded, the first event from the six is dropped to be replaced by points from the current tournament.
Elsewhere, there are plenty of strong contenders in attendance, all of whom have it within them to go all the way here in Petrich. With two semi-final appearances to her name, Pia Filler (Germany) will be hoping to go one better and reach the championship match. Also from Germany is Veronika Ivanovskaia who was the best placed Euro Tour player in the recent World Games. Sitting at a lowly 37th on the rankings, she can fire herself up the order of merit with a strong showing in Petrich.
Finally, Bulgarian hopes are carried by 10th ranked Kristina Zlateva. With a best finish of 3rd in the past 12 months, how dearly she would like to achieve her maiden Predator Euro Tour win on home soil.
Play gets underway at 9.00am local time tomorrow. All Predator Euro Tour Women tournaments are 9-ball and the field contest a double-elimination format, playing down to the last 16 competitors, and then single elimination until the finish. All matches are a race to 7 racks with alternate break.
All the matches can be viewed live at www.kozoom.com
Results, live scoring and draw are available at www.epbf.com
Great Britain’s Kelly Fisher arrived at this week’s World Games in Birmingham wanting to feel the event’s full experience – staying in the athlete’s village with competitors from other countries and rubbing elbows with those athletes all week.
Saturday night, Fisher achieved the ultimate World Games experience: winning a gold medal. The Billiard Congress of America Hall of Famer battled back from an early deficit against Chinese Taipei’s Chieh-Yu Chou with some stout safety play paired with some fortune to win her first-ever gold medal in the women’s 9-ball competition. 9-5. The medal is the second she’s won at the Games. Having earned bronze when the competition was in Colombia in 2013.
“I don’t know how to describe how I feel,” she said after the match. “It meant so much to me. It was the title that I never won. I never had a gold medal. It’s a dream come true, honestly.”
The early stage of the match belonged to Chou, who used two breaks and runs along with an unforced error by Fisher to win three straight racks to open the set. After the two competitors traded breaks and runs and Chou maintained a 4-1 lead, Fisher started to realize that her dreams of gold might soon fade if she didn’t start winning racks soon.
“At one point I’m falling down thinking I just need to get going,” she said. “I’ve not really had much of a have a go yet and it might be too late.”
It wasn’t, as the Brit whittled away at the lead and tied the match when she broke and ran twice and took advantage of a missed shot by her opponent on her way to three consecutive wins.
Fisher claimed the next two racks thanks to fortunate rolls more than effective play. After winning a safety exchange on the 2 ball, she appeared to be on her way to another win until she pushed the 4 ball left of the corner pocket. The object ball rolled to a spot where it was blocked by the 7 ball, which forced Chou to execute a kick shot which resulted in a scratch, allowing Fisher to clear the table. She had similar circumstances in the next game when she missed a shot at the 1 ball but watched as it too rolled to a safe position on the table. After a lengthy safety exchange, the Brit again found an opening and cleared the table to grab a 6-4 advantage.
After winning a safety exchange on the 1 ball after her break, Chou appeared to be in position to close out the 11thrack and close the gap until she pushed the winning 9 ball to the side of the pocket, allowing Fisher to come to the table and take a 7-4 lead with one stroke.
“I think that it is easy to underestimate that shot and I think that’s what I did,” said Chou through a translator after the match.
The young woman from Chinese Taipei would recover by winning another safety exchange in the following game and running out this time, cutting the lead to 7-5. She was unable to continue the momentum in the next rack as she committed two unforced errors, failing to touch a rail on an attempted safety during one trip to the table and miscuing on another, as Fisher cleared the table again to build an 8-5 lead.
With the medal now within reach, Fisher broke and pocketed a ball but did not have a clear shot at the 1 ball. After a safety exchange on both the 1 and 2 balls, the Brit found a clear path to the winning runout when Chou left her an opening, raising her cue over her head in triumph after she pocketed the match-clinching 9-ball.
“I think I had a very like good start and, overall, a good game, but Kelly is a very good player and she works hard,” said Chou. “She had a good situation today too.”
Fisher reached the final having overcome a handful of errors down the stretch to hold off a comeback by Japan’s Yuki Hiraguchi, 9-5 in the semifinals Saturday morning. Fisher will now face Chinese Taipei’s Chieh-Yu Chou in the championship match later tonight.
It was the tale of two matches for Fisher, who used two breaks and runs coupled with a scratch on the break and a dry break by her opponent to build a quick 4-0 lead, then adding three more victories after Hiraguchi climbed onto the scoreboard with a win in the fifth rack. The Brit began to sputter in the match’s late stages, leaving her opponent makeable shots while attempting to play defense, as the young girl from Japan rattled off four straight wins to trim the deficit to 7-5.
“It was my safety play. My safety play was just off,” said Fisher. “I was either over-hitting it or under-hitting it.”
Fisher was able to use a combination shot on the 9 ball in the 13th rack and a tricky break-and-run where she left herself multiple shots with involved sharp cuts to close out the match and prevail.
“Overall, I’m happy with my performance,” said Fisher. “There’s a lot of pressure out there. If you lose that, there’s no guarantee that you’re going home with a medal.”
Regardless of her performance tonight, Fisher has already secured her best performance in World Games competition, having earned bronze in Colombia at the 2013 games and failing to earn one in Poland five years ago.
While Fisher stumbled her way across the finish line in her semifinal match, her opponent Chou seemed to get better. After splitting the first six games with Germany’s Veronika Ivanovskaia, Chou capitalized on a handful of opportunities down the stretch to win six straight racks and cruise to a 9-3 decision.
Prior to the gold medal match, the German and Hiraguchi met to determine the winner of the bronze medal, with the young girl from Japan coming from behind to earn a bronze medal with a 9-7 win.
Ivanovskaia jumped out to an early 4-2 advantage until a missed 3 ball in the seventh game gave her opponent life, as Hiraguchi won five of the next six to surge ahead 7-5. The German wasn’t finished, taking advantage of a victorious safety exchange to tie the match at 7-7, but Hiraguchi used stellar shot making down the stretch to pull off the win.
The Olympic Channel is live streaming The World Games and billiards will feature on July 16 and July 17 when the finals take place. A full streaming schedule and links are at https://www.theworldgames.org/pages/twg2022streaming. The match schedule, results, and live scores are at esnooker.pl
Follow @wcbsbilliards on social media for full coverage of the billiards program from our team in Birmingham, Alabama.
WOMEN’S POOL Veronika Ivanovskaia 9-8 Rubilen Amit
Thursday night, Rubilen Amit of the Philippines stunned Germany’s Pia Filler with a pressure-packed, come-from-behind 9-8 victory, winning three consecutive racks to secure a spot in the quarterfinals.
A mere 24 hours later, it appeared history might be repeating itself, as Germany’s Veronika Ivanovskaia jumped out to an early 6-2 advantage, only to watch it all evaporate as a handful of missed shots allowed her opponent to climb back into the match and tie the score, 8-8.
“I couldn’t finish easy tables anymore,” said Ivanovskaia. ”I was shaking and my head was all over.”
While the Filipino used a heavy dose of luck to advance the night before, this time her luck ran out, as Ivanovskaia received a timely roll after a missed shot to defeat Amit, 9-8, and advance to Saturday’s quarterfinals.
With the score tied at eight games each, Amit scratched on the break and gave the ball-in-hand to her opponent, who promptly missed a routine 3 ball minutes later. Fortunately for the German, the object ball rolled to a safe place on the table and forced her opponent to execute a kick shot. Amit’s kick left a wide-open table and, despite the rattled nerves along with the memory of a handful of missed shots, Ivanovskaia closed out the final rack with authority, rifling each ball into the pocket with confidence.
“I said to myself, ‘this is your final chance and if you don’t take it, then you’re just stupid,’” she said. “I just tried to stay committed on my shots and focus on my cue action and just make the
balls.”
Chieh-Yu Chou 9, Eunji Park 1
Chinese Taipei’s Chieh-Yu Chou led start-to-finish in her match against Korea’s Eunji Park and coasted to a commanding 9-1 victory in the quarterfinals of the World Games in Birmingham.
“I think I had a pretty good break today at the beginning and at the end,” said Chou.
After winning the first two racks, Park climbed onto the scoreboard to cut the deficit to 2-1. That would be her lone win of the match, as Chou won seven straight games to close out the set and advance to the semifinals.
Park’s play was the polar opposite of what she had exhibited a day earlier when she battled to the wire to defeat Monica Webb of the United States, 9-8, in the opening round, struggling with her break and ball pocketing throughout the evening session match.
“Yesterday, I think I had a good influence on the game by preparing my mind before the game and today, unlike yesterday, I lost because I was nervous,” said Park.
Aloysius Yapp will meet Sanjin Pehlivanovic in The World Games semi-finals. Pehlivanovic overturned a 5-1 deficit to beat John Morra 11-9, while Yapp defeated Spain’s Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz 11-7.
Morra opened an early 5-1 lead over his opponent, but a scratch on the 7 ball allowed Pehlivanovic back in and the European 10-Ball Champion seized his moment, putting together a four-pack to tie the match.
The Canadian responded in the 11th to regain the lead at 6-5 but missed the 9 in the subsequent game. Pehlivanovic could only go safe and Morra made an up-table bank to lead 5-7.
The Bosnian took the next game and a golden break had him level at 7-7. The match continued to swing back and forth before it was the Bosnian who arrived first on the hill, and he wasn’t going to let his opportunity slip and he closed out an 11-9 victory.
“I was down 5-1 because I started badly. The last couple of months every match I was losing, I won, so that is good and gives me confidence. I had a little bit of luck, the same as him but I am happy to be in the semi-final. When he scratched on the 7, that was the turning point and I tried to play every rack as if it was the last one.
“It would be a dream to win The World Games. This is an important match tomorrow so I will look forward to it. To be the first player from Boznia to win a billiards gold, for the country, I cannot find the words to describe how big that achievement would be.
Yapp earned his place in the semis with an 11-7 win against in-form Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz of Spain. Sanchez-Ruiz had early leads of 2-1 and 4-2 before Yapp found his stride to open up an 8-5 advantage. Despite winning games on his break, Sanchez-Ruiz wasn’t given chances by Yapp, who closed out an 11-7 win.
The Olympic Channel is live streaming The World Games and billiards will feature on July 16 and July 17 when the finals take place. A full streaming schedule and links are at https://www.theworldgames.org/pages/twg2022streaming. The match schedule, results, and live scores are at esnooker.pl
Follow @wcbsbilliards on social media for full coverage of the billiards program from our team in Birmingham, Alabama.
When Rubilen Amit missed a 9-ball in the corner pocket in the 14th game and allowed her opponent, Germany’s Pia Filler, to snatch the rack and build an 8-6 lead, it appeared her chances to advance to the quarterfinals of the World Games were all but gone.
“I just it seemed as if I lost hope of winning,” she said after the match. “That was actually a crucial shot.”
Thankfully for her, a small group of Filipinos from the Birmingham area were in attendance encouraging her to keep fighting – which she did, using safety exchanges mixed with a little bit of luck to win three straight racks and defeat Filler, 9-8, Thursday night.
“I’m very grateful for them because they kept the energy for me, because there were times where my energy was quite low and I was kind of down,” she said.
Amit missed the 1 ball in the 16th rack but watched as the cue ball rolled into an accidental safety, which allowed her to regain control of the table, clear the rack and pull within one game. She would add on another win when her opponent scratched while attempting to kick at the 7 ball. With the score now tied,
Amit broke open the rack and left the 1 ball perfectly nestled in the jaws of the far corner pocket.
There was just one issue: the cue ball did not have a path to the object ball, instead blocked by a nearby 3 and 7 ball. Amit opted to use the “push out” rule, allowing her to push the cue ball anywhere on the table and offer the shot to her opponent, who can then either take it or decline.
When Filler declined the shot, Amit soon realized she’d pushed the ball into an area of table that the vertically-challenged women could not reach, ultimately kicking at and failing to contact the object ball.
“When Pia returned a shot back to me, I was like smiling because I couldn’t reach the shot,” said Amit. “But then I was still quite still quite hopeful because the rack isn’t that easy to clear.”
Which is exactly what happened, as the German scratched after missing a sharp cut shot on the 3 ball. Amit the cleared the table to secure the win, as her newfound crowd of supporters erupted. “Their cheering was what was what kept me on was what kept me in the game,” said Amit.
Fellow German Veronika Ivanovskaia jumped out to an early 4-0 advantage and cruised to an easily 9-1 victory over Argentina’s Soledad Ayala in the opening match of the evening session of Thursday night’s round-of-16 competition.
“I played quite solid I would say,” said Ivanovskaia. “I made the right shots and stood calm. All in all, I would say it was a good performance.”
The German experimented with her break during the match due to the cue ball reacting differently on the left side of the table in comparison to the opposite side, ultimately finding a spot which worked for her down the stretch.
After climbing onto the scoreboard in the fifth rack, the Argentinian continued to battle throughout the match but was unable to capitalize on many opportunities.
Ivanovskaia will now face Amit in the quarterfinals on Friday.
Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz produced six break and runs as he defeated Ko Ping-Chung 11-8 to reach the quarter-finals of Men’s Pool at The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
The Spaniard is enjoying the most fruitful year of his career to date and produced a confident display to overcome a tough opponent in what was a tricky first-round draw.
It wasn’t until the 10th game that either player pulled more than one ahead of his opponent, and it was Sanchez-Ruiz who went 6-4 ahead before extending that lead to 7-4, benefitting from a little luck along with the way. Ko fought back to 7-6 but Sanchez-Ruiz arrived on the hill with a 10-7 lead.
Ko took the next game on his break, but Sanchez-Ruiz came up with his sixth runout of the match – the most by one player so far at The World Games – to complete the victory.
“It was an exciting match and I think I played really well but I had some luck in the middle of the match; I made two flukes,” said Sanchez-Ruiz. “I always take it round-by-round and I know Ko Ping-Chung is a champion so I stayed focused.
“A medal at The World Games would be like a dream, this tournament is so important for me. In the first half of the year I have won the Derby City Classic and a few weeks ago won the biggest title of my career [The World Cup of Pool] with my partner David Alcaide. I give 100 percent to every tournament and have played a lot, so I have to stay focused but I will keep trying my best.”
Sanchez-Ruiz has been taking advantage of the chance to compete alongside fellow Spaniard and three-time carom Gold medalist Dani Sanchez. “I learn a lot from Dani, he is one of the best players in the world. You have all disciplines here, lots of sports, and I am really happy to be here.”
Aloysius Yapp will form Sanchez-Ruiz’s opposition in the quarter-finals after an 11-3 win over New Zealand’s Matt Edwards. Yapp moved into a quick 3-0 lead before Edwards was on the board, but three games later Singapore’s Yapp was 6-1 ahead.
Edwards, struggling to get balls on the break, pulled himself back to 6-3 but Yapp took advantage of the New Zealander’s struggles and put five games together to complete a comfortable victory.
“Yapp is always a tough opponent,” said Edwards. “It’s the second time I have played him and he got revenge on me because I won last time. He is getting a lot of good results at the moment and I struggled a lot with the break. I was down early on and it is very difficult to comeback. I knew going down early on and him breaking quite well and shooting well would make it difficult to come back, so it was difficult to stay in the match.
“Without the break you have very little opportunity and when you do get one, a player like Yapp can play very good safety shots. I think he missed one ball but still hooked me, so it is frustrating when you’re not breaking well and then can’t execute the few opportunities you do get.”
The Olympic Channel is live streaming The World Games and billiards will feature on July 16 and July 17 when the finals take place. A full streaming schedule and links are at https://www.theworldgames.org/pages/twg2022streaming. The match schedule, results, and live scores are at esnooker.pl
Follow @wcbsbilliards on social media for full coverage of the billiards program from our team in Birmingham, Alabama.
Kelly Fisher will play Eylul Kibaroglu in the Women’s Division final of the Pro Billiard Series’ Predator Germany Open but in the Open division Hall of Famer Ralf Souquet was defeated by Dimitris Loukatos in the quarter finals.
Loukatos will face Ramazan Akdag in the semi finals when play commences at 9am local time on Saturday. Alfa Las Vegas Open champion Wiktor Zielinski defeated European 10 Ball Champion Sanjin Pehlivanovic of Bosnia 6-5 in a Sudden Death shootout to face Can Salim in the last four. Salim was 4-2, 4-0 winner against Soufi Mohammad.
Both divisions of the event carry €45,400 added money and both of tomorrow’s champions will earn €20,000. The Open champion will be invited to the World 10-Ball Championship in Las Vegas next year and the Women’s champion will receive a spot in this fall’s World Women’s 10-Ball Championship in Austria.
An exciting quarter-final match saw Fisher defeat Jasmin Ouschan 4-3, 4-2. A shootout win against Germany’s Veronika Ivanovskaia took Sarac to final four and a semi-final which was a repeat of last year’s Austrian Women’s Open final, won by Fisher.
The Brit won a close opening set when at hill-hill Sarac scratched and with ball in hand Fisher negotiated the table to win the set 4-3. The Serbian rising star took a 2-1 lead in the second set when Fisher missed the kind of 10 ball she’d make 99 times in 100. Sarac ranout the fourth game but a missed 6 ball to the middle brought Fisher back from her chair. Two more opportunities then escaped Sarac. First, she couldn’t unpin the 8 from the side rail, allowing Fisher to tie the set, and a missed 4 then allowed Fisher to take the decider.
The Brit will now go for her third Pro Billiard Series titles in a row and has enjoyed the conditions in Germany. She said: “The table is playing great, the best it has played, it is playing perfect. Predator have gone a great job, they have taken feedback from players and referees and put it all together. You couldn’t ask for better conditions.”
The Open division has arrived at its semi final stage with Salim as the only German player remaining. That is because Souquet suffered a 4-3 shootout defeat to Greece’s Loukatos in the last eight. Souquet lost the first set 4-3 and fought back to make the shootout by winning the second set 4-1, but was defeated after missing two shots of his four innings of the shootout.
The Predator Germany Open has reached the single elimination stage after players battled through the last double elimination rounds of the Pro Billiard Series event on Thursday.
Austria’s Jasmin Ouschan had to win through three rounds and will now face two-time Pro Billiard Series champion Kelly Fisher in the quarter-finals of the Women’s Division.
The Open division moves to single elimination for the last 32 and Germany’s World Junior Champion Moritz Neuhausen won 4-3, 4-1 against Hong Kong’s Ip Tung Pong to make it five players from the home country to reach the second stage. Ralf Souquet had won through the winners’ side of the bracket and will now face Mahmut Sami Koylu of Turkey. Can Salim also came from the winners’ side and will face German countryman Tobias Bongers, who scored a win against Vincent Gomez to reach the single elimination phase. Yuma Dorner is the fifth German into the last 32 and will play Mateusz Sniegocki.
Both divisions of the Predator Germany Open have added money of €45,400 and both champions will earn €20,000, along with a spot at the 2023 World 10-Ball Championship for the Open winner and a spot in the 2022 World Women’s 10-Ball Championship for the Women’s Division winner.
In the Women’s Division, Ouschan won a shootout against Kim Witzel and then defeated Angeline Magdalena Ticoalu to meet Amalia Matas for a place in the quarter-finals. Matas already has a Women’s EuroTour title this year but her run in Germany was ended with a straight-sets defeat to Ouschan. Germany’s Veronika Ivanovskaia is drawn against Bojana Sarac.
Among the players to reach the final 32 of the Open division is Finland’s Petri Makkonen, a winner on the EuroTour in 2015. He had been defeated on the first day of play by Saudi Arabia’s Khalid Alghamdi and the Finn then had to battle through three rounds on the losers’ side, which culminated in a shootout against Alex Montpellier of France.
Makkonen won the first set 4-2 but France’s Montpellier, who came to the losers’ qualification round after a shootout defeat against Pijus Labutis, took advantage of Makkonen’s struggles in the second set to win 4-1. That was the end of the tournament for Montpellier, as Makkonen regrouped and didn’t miss in the shootout while his French opponent missed on each of his last two innings.
Play resumes at 9am local time in Bremen, Germany, and Friday’s play on the TV table will commence with Nick van den Berg facing Mickey Krause.
Janni Siekkinen, Casper Matikainen, Jani Uski and Petri Makkonen
In the penultimate day at the Dynamic Billard European Pool Championships in Lasko, Slovenia, it was an evening of drama and excitement as the destination of the medals in the men’s and women’s team events was determined. And it was Finland in the men’s and Germany in the ladies’ who took the gold medals in a pair of thrilling finals.
In the men’s event, there were three matches playing simultaneously with the first team to achieve two wins carrying off the gold medals and the trophy. The featured match was on the TV table and involved Casper Matikainen (Finland) facing off against Daniel Maciol of Poland in 9-Ball.
The willowy Finn was always ahead of the game with some quality shot-making while his opponent never quite got to grips with the match. Matikainen had led 3-1 and 4-2, while the other two tables saw it at 3-3 in the 10-ball match between Petri Makkonen and Sebastian Batkowski, with the 8-ball encounter between Jani Uski and Wojciech Szewczyk also tied up at 3-3.
Always staying ahead of his opponent, Matikainen maintained his two-rack margin before leaping into a 6-3 lead. The Finn enjoyed some beneficial fortune as that became 7-3 and victory was in his grasp. At that same juncture, the other two games were in Poland’s favour as they led 6-4 in the 10-Ball encounter and 4-3 in the 8-Ball.
A fruitless break from Maciol gave the table back to Matikainen and with the balls spread nicely, he cleared up to reach the hill with a five-game cushion. Maciol relaxed a little as he won the next for 8-4 but in what was the final rack, Matikainen made an excellent bank on the 2 ball, leaving a difficult 3/9 combo but with a comfortable lead, he took it on and made it, giving the first of the three available points to Finland.
The focus now shifted to tables two and three as Petri Makkonen moved to the hill in the 10-ball match, having overcome a two-rack deficit to leave Finland within a rack of the gold medals. Makkonen, with the break, delivered an enormous shot to down three balls. Sucking down deep breaths to keep himself calm, Makkonen rattled the jaws with the 1 ball to give the table back to Batkowski as the 8-ball match moved to five racks each.
Makkonen though got back to the table and had a terrific opportunity to bring home the gold. The balls were all there for the Finn as he pocketed the orange 5 into the centre pocket. The 6 was down the rail and the 8, 9 and 10 all out in the open. The seasoned Finn composed himself and took them down as his two jubilant team mates ran into the arena to celebrate their first ever team gold medal.
Commented Matikainen, “It feels great! I have a really nice team with me and we all trust each other. We didn’t really think it was going to be this time but this feels really good. It was a good match for me in the final but throughout the tournament I think everybody played good.”
For Petri Makkonen it was a nerve-racking affair but potting the championship 10 ball was a supreme moment; “I was one rack down all the way until I was 6-4 down but I dug deep. I had a few hiccups but I overcame them. I saw Casper was winning and Uski was playing good so it was easy to play and I relaxed a little bit when I saw we were one up and Uski was 6-5 up.
“I played good, we played good and here’s the result. Watching your team mates winning and at the table really gives you energy and it’s much easier to overcome things in your own match. Relieved is the word and we got the result we wanted,” he added.
Final
Finland 2 – 0 Poland
Casper Matikainen 9 – 4 Daniel Maciol (9 Ball)
Petri Makkonen 8 – 7 Sebastian Batkowski (10 Ball)
Jani Uski v Wojciech Szewczyk (8 Ball) Did not complete
Semi Finals
Finland 2 – 0 Poland
Jani Uski 8 – 5 Diego Pedro Simon (8 Ball)
Casper Matikainen 9 – 7 Jonas Souto (9 Ball)
Petri Makkonen 8 – 1 Francisco Diaz Pizarro (10 Ball)
Poland 2 – 1 Denmark
Wojciech Szewczyk 8 – 5 Jeppe Thyde (8 Ball)
Daniel Maciol 9 – 3 Mickey Krause (9 Ball)
Sebastian Batkowski 5 – 8 Andreas Madsen (10 Ball)
Veronika Ivanovskaia, Melanie Subenguth, Tina Vogelmann and Pia Filler and German National Coach Tom Damm
In the women’s event it was Germany who prevailed with the winning duo of Pia Filler and Tina Vogelmann who defeated the Norwegian pairing of Line Kjorsvik and Nina Torvund via a deciding shootout after the two teams couldn’t be separated in regulation play. The format of the Dynamic Billards Women’s Team event saw two matches in 8 ball and 9 ball, with a shootout in operation should the two teams be tied at one match apiece.
After defeating Switzerland 2-0 in their semi-final, the German pair had a tougher proposition against Norway. The first match to finish was Pia Filler’s 7-1 9-ball win over Torvund, leaving the medal destination resting on the other game of 8 ball. With a big lead though, Kjorsvik closed out a 6-2 victory over Vogelmann to leave a shoot-out decider, where the black ball rests on the spot, with and the cue ball positioned at the centre of the head-string.
It took 16 shots to separate the pair as Norway missed with the score at 7-7 and the Germans converted to give themselves team gold, breaking a run of two consecutive silver medals. As well as Vogelmann and Filler, who collected her second gold of the Championships, medals also went to team members Veronika Ivanovskaia and Melanie Suβenguth who had won the team’s winners’ qualification match, also against Norway.
Commented Vogelmann, “It’s amazing, I can’t believe it at this moment. I was sure we were well-prepared; we’re a good team and we have so many good players in Germany at the moment, many more than the four playing in this tournament. You have pressure because you know you want to win it and you can win it but I think we are a shoot-out monster team!”
Suβenguth added, “I’m very proud of the team and of course the final was very exciting to watch and I’m very happy we got the win.”
For Ivanovskaia who had played her part in the earlier rounds, it wasn’t an easy experience; “It was very nervy watching. There’s a lot of support between each other and a lot of belief in ourselves and they both played very good in the final.”
Finally, for Pia Filler, who is still alive in the 9-ball event which concludes on Saturday, it was another great day at the ECs; “It was my first time playing in the team event and I’m very proud of us, I think we did a really good job. I know the job for today was done very well but there’s another gold medal to be won and of course I’ll be trying my very best to win that too.”
Final
Germany 2 – 1 Norway
Pia Filler 7 – 1 Nina Torvund (9 Ball)
Tina Vogelmann 2 – 6 Line Kjorsvik (8 Ball)
Germany 8 – 7 Norway (Shoot Out)
Semi Finals
Germany 2 – 0 Switzerland
Tina Vogelmann 6 – 2 Claudia Von Rohr (8 Ball)
Pia Filler 7 – 2 Christine Feldmann (9 Ball)
The 2022 Dynamic Billards European Championship sees 15 separate events
across four disciplines – 8, 9 and 10 ball as well as straight pool –
plus the men’s and women’s team competitions. In total there are four
divisions; men, women, under 23 men and wheelchair users.
