The Dynamic Billard Dutch Open started this morning according to plan at 09:00 CET with the first round matches in the Golden Tulip Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands. Actually, more or less according to plan. Sometime, things are a bit rough around the edges at the beginning. That is true for players as well as for organizers.
Two players from France have missed the fact that this event lasts one day longer which means that play started Wednesday instead of Thursday. They arrived in the afternoon in a good mood just to get the information that their first round matches have been forfeited due to no-shows... Not the best start into a Euro-Tour event.
Also the live stream has to cope with some problems due to very low bandwidth on site. Broadcasting is currently pretty difficult. The organizers do their best in order to improve the situation but sometimes things just don't work the way one wants them to.
The same thought was probably valid for Mark Gray (GBR) today.
Being constantly among the top ten Euro-Tour players for some yearsnow, Gray had to play his fellow countryman Karl Boyes (GBR) in the first winner's round already. This happened because Boyes has not played the Euro-Tour regularly and is not seeded. From Gray's point of view a pretty unlucky draw since Boyes still has the wind underneath his wings from winning the World Cup of Pool last week, together with his teammate Darren Appleton.
The match between Gray and Boyes promised to be the toughest match of the day so far... at least on paper. But it turned out to be a one-sided affair to the benefit of Boyes. He stormed off like a hurricane and before Gray even knew what happened, the score was 6:0 in favor of Boyes. That progress of the match was definitely not foreseeable. Gray only managed to open his account in the 7th rack, turning the score 1:6. From then on, both actors took turns in winning racks but Gray's resistance was already broken. 9:3 was the clear final score in favor of Boyes who will proceed to the 2nd winner's round while Gray needs to find his rhythm over on the loser's side.
Other interesting results of the early rounds today include Marco Teutscher (NED) defeating his teammate Ivo Aarts (NED) with 9:3 in winner's round 1. Both players belong to the „young orange" team around coach Alex Lely. It is interesting to see that Aarts probably does not have the best year in 2014. He was rising high in 2013 and early 2014 but his performance seems to be stuck at the moment. Hopefully for him he will be able to find his way back into the tournament on the loser's side while Teutscher continues in the winner's bracket.
All time favorite and BCA Hall of Famer Ralf Souquet (GER) had a heartbreaker in his first match with youngster Danie Tangudd (SWE). Souquet won by a whisker with 9:8. Tangudd, who had already defeated Thomas Poeschl (GER) 9:5 this morning, is representing the new generation of European Pool. Coming just out of the youth, he obviously managed to give a hard time to legend Souquet. He almost had him down. This time, experience won over youth. It is going to be very interesting to follow the course of players like Tangudd. There is definitely more to come from him.
In the all-Polish clash between Piotr Kudlik and Radoslaw Babica, Kudlik remained the upper hand and sent Babica to the left side of the draw, winning with 9:6.
Four out of 11 tables can be watched LIVE throughout the event on www.kozoom.com. The event will be hosted by the European Pocket Billiard Federation EPBF and organized by International Billiard Promotion, IBP. For further information, please check the event website at www.eurotouronline.com or contact the EPBF press office at press@epbf.com