The opening ceremony of 11th Kremlin Cup 10-Ball featured over 400 players parading around the venue and greeted with a foreword by WPA president Ian Anderson.
The first day of play was basically a warm-up for the majority of players, as many got a first round bye and had to play only once. Even with that being said, there was no time to take anything for granted, even for the tournament favorites. Corey Deuel is through one step closer to the KO bracket with a whitewash. The same result was achieved by Albanian youngster Eklent Kaci. Kristina Tkach, currently one of the top European female players, was there with a solid performance winning two matches in a row with the same scoreline 8-1.
3-time World champion and 7-time European wheelchair champion, Henrik Larsson (Sweden) is on the B side of the bracket with one win and one loss.
Some notable players who have already tasted defeat but but are still alive on the left side of the board include Konstantin Stepanov and Vitaly Pavlukhin, both at the hands of Francisco Sanchez Ruiz. Second day matches sees the Spaniard in the box with Corey Deuel. Another day two fight to advance to the KO stage is going to be Ralf Souquet vs Mika Immonen. Both Hall of Famers showed some rough spots in their performance and will be looking to step up a gear. Thorsten Hohmann turned out to be a tough nut to crack for Denis Grabe, winning 8-3. Those two met in the 2013 Kremlin Cup semifinal, and it was that very year the German won the event.
Brackets can be found http://tournamentservice.net/tournament.php?chart=15632 and also here https://cuescore.com/tournament/Kremlin+Cup+2016/1167340 . Live stream from the TV table at https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebilliardbrothers/?fref=ts starting 11 am (Moscow time) and running throughout the day.
