INA KAPLAN’S RELENTLESS winning streak continued at the De Bonte Weever Hotel in Assen as she claimed the PREDATOR DUTCH WOMEN’S OPEN title, defeating Austria’s Sandra Baumgartner 9-6.
The German player has now won five of her last seven Predator Euro Tour starts, and claimed a runner-up and the ninth placed finish in the other two, and is firmly cemented at the top of the rankings.
She said, “It's really nice and I’m feeling pretty awesome. I know the final wasn’t the best; I was a little bit lucky at the end when Sandra didn’t shoot the 9-ball and it always feels a little bit strange to win like that but I‘m really happy and my performance was good over the weekend.”
The opening racks of the final were a little scrappy and Kaplan found herself in a 3-0 lead. It wasn’t the best start for Baumgartner and she never really recovered from it. She battled on though, and tried to stay with Kaplan. She got back to 4-3, then 5-4 but the German had too much to relinquish her lead.
When she moved ahead 7-4, it looked as if the writing was on the wall but to her credit, the Austrian player fought back to get to 7-6. At 8-6 she had a 9-ball to get one back but overran her positional shot and subsequently left the 9 hanging to present Kaplan with the golden chance to seal the deal.
Kaplan continued, “Sandra was a little bit shaky in the beginning and wasn’t stroking that good and I took advantage of it and kind of got going and got to the end. I think part of my success is that I really enjoy playing here as it’s my only opportunity to play against the best in Europe so I’m always looking forward to playing the Euro Tour and I hope it stays that way.
“I have to make time for training with the kids and working but I have a pool table at home so I take every minute to train and practice,” she concluded.
Whilst it wasn’t her best showing in the final, Baumgartner was happy with her performances throughout the year, “It was not my best performance in the final but overall, I’m very happy. It’s my first full season since 2016 and I’ve had three podiums so I’m pretty proud of that.
“Of course, it would have been much better to have been on top but still very happy. Especially at the beginning, I made some very bad mistakes, I was just very nervous and then I was just behind all the time and at the end I got nervous again but she deserved to win.”
The two semi-finalist were Bojana Sarac (Serbia) who was defeated by Baumgartner and Tamara Rademakers (NED) who lost to Kaplan.
With the Predator Euro Tour Series events now concluded, the focus now moves to the Predator European Seniors Championships which get underway on Tuesday 30th September and runs until Wednesday 8th October. Streaming of Tables 1 and 2 for all Euro Tour and European Championships events can be found on YouTube, via the Pro Billiard TV channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ProBilliardTV
For all results, live scoring and draw, visit https://www.epbf.com/tournaments/eurotour/information/
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