8th February 2025
JOSHUA FILLER (GERMANY) collected his ninth Predator Euro Tour title as he defeated compatriot Stefan Casper by 10-2 to claim the Longoni Italian Open at the Best Western BHR Treviso Hotel. Filler’s recent run of form at the Euro Tour has been nothing short of incredible, with five championship wins in his last seven starts.
For Casper, who battled his way through the competition, it was a career-best second place finish, and he enjoyed outstanding victories over Alex Kazakis and Wojciech Szewczyk in the quarter and semi-finals respectively. Filler, though, grabbed the match by the scruff of its neck as he opened up a 3-0 lead to leave his opponent reeling.
Casper got a couple of racks on the board to trail 2-4 and give himself a glimmer of hope, but after that it was strictly one-way traffic as Filler won the next eight racks unanswered to close out the match.
Filler is well-rehearsed in victory speeches and he said, “It feels good because I played pretty good throughout the whole tournament, except the one match maybe. The deciding thing today against Niels and Casper was my safety game. I played really good safety; smart shots and I kept them under pressure the whole time.
“For Casper in the final, he was struggling with the speed of the table and I just took advantage of it. Every time I got out of shape, I played really good shots and when you play like that it feels amazing. It’s my ninth win of the Euro Tour. It’s pretty impressive but I want to keep the streak going.
Filler had been under the spell of jetlag, having just returned from an extended trip to the United States.
He said, “The first two days I just slept a maximum of two or three hours due to the jet lag but today was the first day that I slept six hours so I felt much much better. In the first match I was kind of still tired but when you play a lot of matches, you go through the adrenalin and don’t feel tired. Now I’m awake, I’m going to have a nice dinner and I’m happy to lift the trophy in the end!”
Despite coming close, Casper drew some consolation from his performances this week, “I’m very happy with this tournament but Josh is too good - that’s it. I could have made it 3-3 but after that I had no chance. But that’s OK; I’m very happy with my second place. It’s been the best international tournament I’ve ever played and I’m looking forward to achieving similar results in the future.”
The Longoni Italian Open was the first Euro Tour event following Predator’s ground-breaking partnership with the tour.
Commented JP Parmentier, Sports Marketing Director of the Predator Group, “This event marks the beginning of an exciting new era for our sport. We are incredibly proud to have introduced the ARC Pool Table on this stage for the first time, and seeing a world-class player like Joshua Filler lift the trophy on the ARC made it even more special.
“This is just the beginning—we’re looking forward to bringing this level of innovation and excellence to many more events ahead,” he added.
The Longoni Italian Open (Women) got underway today and played down to the last 16. Play resumes tomorrow (Sunday) at 10.00 with the title decider scheduled for 16.00.
This year sees a new streaming platform for all Euro Tour and European Championships events.
Table 1 will be streamed throughout 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/
The Predator Euro Tour Series is the world's longest-running pool tour. Sanctioned by the EPBF, there are six events annually on the calendar and all tournaments are played on Predator ARC tables, covered with Simonis 860 cloth, using Aramith Duramith balls. Additional sponsors are Kamui Chalk and Longoni Cues.
The host sponsor at the Longoni Italian Open is the Best Western Premier BHR Treviso Hotel
From Official EPBF Press Realease