The semi-finals of the Dynamic Billard North Cyprus Open have been determined. Nikos Ekonomopoulos (GRE) will play Mika Immonen (FIN) at 14:30 and Jayson Shaw (SCO) will face Mario He (AUT) at 16:00 today.
Today brought high class single elimination action to the tournament. Ekonomopoulos ousted Daryl Peach (GBR) 9:5 and then took down David Alcaide (ESP) 9:3 for his seat in the semi-final match. In the last 12 months, Ekonomopoulos only made it to the semi-finals in Treviso in February this year. Apart from that, he always lost in earlier rounds. It will be interesting to see whether he can continue this good from and maybe make it to the final match today. His opponent Immonen who had to go the longest way through the loser’s side after having lost his opening match eliminated Tomasz Kaplan (POL) 9:2 and Sebastian Ludwig (GER) 9:6 today to get to the semi-final match. Both players showed constant and steady pool action and it can be predicted that the semi-final between these two will be a close affair.
Jayson Shaw today was the better man against Oliver Ortmann (GER) 9:7 and Karol Skowerski (POL) also 9:7. The close results show that he really needed to do some work to earn his spot in the semi-final. Shaw’s main reason for playing the Euro-Tour is to make it on the Mosconi Cup Team this year. With results like this, he is definitely a candidate for it. His opponent He took care of nr.2 ranked player Niels Feijen (NED) 9:6 and then got the better of Ralf Souquet (GER) 9:5. That match between the two will be as exciting as the other semi-final but the two participants will probably show a more offensive game than in the other match.
The Women North Cyprus Open have also started today. 30 women from all over Europe are competing in this event. Nr.1 seed Nataliya Seroshtan (RUS) had a walk-over in the first round and then defeated Monika Zabek (POL) 7:3 after having trailed 1:3 in the match. The other player with a walk-over was Christine Wiechert (GER) who is currently ranked 3rd on the Euro-Tour rankings. She did not get started at all in her match and received a whitewash, losing 0:7 to Marharyta Fefilava (BLR). Ine Helvik (NOR) succeeded in winning her match 7:3 over Kateryna Polovinchuk (UKR) which was also a bit of a surprise.
The semi-finals are played at the moment. The final match of the Dynamic Billard North Cyprus Open is scheduled for 18:00 local time today.
The tournaments are all played on 20 tables which will all be in a livestream throughout the events. In order to be able to follow all the action LIVE, premium membership can be purchased at www.kozoom.com. Once a premium membership is held, all events for the respective period of time can be viewed LIVE. Additionally, a huge video gallery is contained in the website.
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 eurotouronline.com, womeneurotouronline.com , visit us on Facebook or check out our youtube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office press@epbf.com.