Souquet remains victorious over Peach
Cison di Valmarino, Italy: In the clash of two of Europe’s best, both equipped with World Champion titles, Ralf Souquet (GER) defeated Daryl Peach (GBR) with 9:5.
The winner’s qualification round is the third round on the winner’s side of a Euro-Tour event. It is normal that good players meet there. But the clash between Souquet and Peach could even in this round be considered as a thrilling encounter of two European top stars of pool billiard. Souquet, after being absent for the last two Euro-Tour events, started furiously in the match. He showed pool to its perfection. Especially his safety shots in the first few racks of the match were second to none. Peach had a hard time in finding into the match at all and after six racks had been played, Souquet was already 5:1 in the lead. It looked like Peach would be smashed by the German. But Peach should never be underestimated. The following two racks saw Peach as the winner, turning the scoreboard to 5:3. Peach tried to turn the tide in the match but Souquet showed all of his professionalism and coolness. He ran out rack nine and won rack ten after a high quality safety battle. At 7:3 for Souquet, Peach still looked for his chances and again managed to pull two racks back from Souquet. The 13th rack brought a preliminary decision to the match. Peach was in good mood, shooting straight and cruising smoothly. He won a safety exchange in the rack and had an open layout in front of him. Dramatically, he snookered himself on the 3-ball by positioning the cue ball too close to the 4-ball. Unbelievable mistake by Peach! He hit the 3-ball but left an open table for Souquet who accepted the invitation and went on the hill with 8:5. What a bad situation for Peach that was. Instead of closing in 6:7 he was now down with 5:8 with his own break shot coming up. Rack 14 turned out to become the final rack of the encounter. Peach had some balls down but the 3-ball was on the wrong side of the side pocket. He could not do anything with the cue ball in order to pocket the 3-ball somewhere. His safety attempt failed and Souquet consequently ran the table for a convincing 9:5 victory. While Souquet triumphantly marches into the single elimination round of the final 32 players which will be played tonight at 20:00 local time, Peach needs to take the detour over the loser’s side with one more victory to achieve.
Other remarkable results from this morning include Karol Skowerski (POL) defeating the recently crowned World Pool Masters Champion Niels Feijen (NED) with 9:7, sending him also to the loser’s side. Spanish David Alcaide overpowered Ruslan Chinakhov (RUS) also with 9:7. Radoslaw Babica (POL) made short work of Chris Melling (GBR), handing him a clear 9:4 defeat. Konstantin Stepanov (RUS), the Dynamic Billard North Cyprus Open winner this year, lost his winner’s qualification round match to Phil Burford (GBR) with 7:9. Though Burford is currently walking on crutches he seems to be in a good shape.
All results and more can be seen at www.eurotouronline.eu .
All 12 tables will be streamed LIVE throughout the event. Join in on www.kozoom.com/en/pool-billiard/ and become a premium member in order to enjoy all features of the site.
In the past week, the EPBF has launched its brand-new website. You can check all information around European pool at www.epbf.com Enjoy!
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.
