With solid performances, Mark Gray (GBR) won the Dynamic Billard Austrian Open and Jasmin Ouschan (AUT) won the Ballazzo Austrian Women’s Open in Alpina Sports and Wellness Hotel in St. Johann i.Pg., Austria.
The men’s final was played between highly favored Mark Gray and underdog Ronald Regli (SUI). The way to the final match today lead Regli over Petri Makkonen (FIN) 9:7, Ivo Aarts (NED) 9:6 and Marco Teutscher (NED) 9:5 in the semi-finals. Gray defeated Imran Majid (GBR) 9:3, Sebastian Staab (GER) 9:6 and Joshua Filler (GER) 9:6 for his seat in the final match. Gray, being the favored player here took the stage and opened his account first. After Gray took a 2:0 lead, Regli was able to pull two racks back and tie the match at 2:2. The match went along quite evenly with both players taking racks but Gray always had that small advantage over Regli at all times. At 5:5, Gray went ahead and took the next three racks in order to get on the hill with 8:5. In rack 14, Regli was a bit unlucky. He went for a jumpsuit on the 3-ball but he left it hanging over the pocket for Gray. That brought the Brit back to the table who showed no mercy and ran the final rack to win the match and the tournament with 9:5. That victory puts Gray on top of the European rankings.
Top Eight Finishers Dynamic Billard Austrian Open
- Mark Gray (GBR)
- Ronald Regli (SUI)
- Marco Teutscher (NED)
Joshua Filler (GER) - Wojciech Szewczyk (POL)
Ivo Aarts (NED)
Wiktor Zielinski (POL)
Sebastian Staab (GER)
The women’s final was played between Jasmin Ouschan and Kamila Khodjaeva (BEL). Both players know each other quite well. Khodjaeva won her semi-final with Vania Franco (POR) 7:2 while Ouschan took down Amalia Matas (ESP) 7:4. The encounter started with Ouschan drawing first blood in the match. Of course, she was the favorite player in the match. But Khodjaeva gave her a good challenge and after three racks, Khodjaeva was up 2:1. The next racks were determined by safety play. Ouschan forced Khodjaeva quite often to come up with jump shots since she played excellent safety position. Subsequently, Ouschan pulled a few racks from Khodjaeva and took a 4:2 lead. This tactical change seemed to work for Ouschan. Khodjaeva took a time-out at that point in time, probably to reshape and think about a solution against Ouschan’s new tactics. It looked as if the time-out did its job. Khodjaeva won the next rack and shortened the distance to Ouschan to 3:4. The next break was Ouschan’s to come up. After a few safety shots, Khodjaeva actually left a good safe for Ouschan. Jasmin had to go rail first on the 2-ball when she did not only hit the 2-ball but flukes it in together with the 3-ball, having an open rack in front of her. The balls were definitely rolling in her favor at that point in time of the match. She ran the rack and went up 5:3. But Khodjaeva never gave in. She pulled the next two racks back and kept the match a tight affair. 5:5 was the score after 50 minutes of playing time. Now it was a race to two! To the shock of the audience, Khodjaeva took the next racks and went on the hill first, leading 6:5 over Ouschan now. And as if it could not have gotten any worse for Ouschan, she broke in rack 12 and scratched with 3 balls down. That was the perfect opportunity for „The Dark Angel“ Kamila Khodjaeva to win the tournament. But she missed a makable 5-ball. The pressure was on for both players. Ouschan used all her experience and joined Khodjaeva on the hill. Now the score was 6:6 with one more rack to go. Khodjaeva was breaking the rack. She had balls down but no shot on the 1-ball. She played a push-out and Ouschan came up with a good safety position for her. Khodjaeva hit the 1-ball rail first but left a shot for Ouschan. Ouschan went for the rack and pocketed the needed 9-ball with a combo over the 5-ball. That brought her the victory in the tournament.
Top Eight Finishers Ballazzo Austrian Women’s Open
- Jasmin Ouschan (AUT)
- Kamila Khodjaeva (BEL)
- Vania Franco (POR)
Amalia Matas (ESP) - Sara Rocha (POR)
Christine Wiechert (GER)
Kristina Tkach (RUS)
Veronika Ivanovskaia (GER)
That concludes the coverage from Sports- and Wellness Hotel Alpina, Alpendorf, St. Johann i.Pg., Austria. The next stop of the Euro-Tour will be from June 2nd-4th in Hotel Acapulco, Catalkoy, Kyrenia, North Cyprus.
The tournaments were played on 24 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 was 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, visit us on Facebook or check out our youtube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office.