THE 10-BALL TOURNAMENTS played out on Wednesday evening at the PREDATOR EPBF European Pool Championships in Antalya and it was gold for Poland’s Daniel Maciol and Ina Kaplan of Germany as they both enjoyed comfortable victories in their respective finals. The stylish Pole enjoyed a white-wash win over Slovakia’s Jakub Koniar while Kaplan had too much for Oliwia Zalewska (Poland), running out a 6-2 victor.
Earlier Maciol had won through the quarters and semis with ease, giving himself an overall 24-5 aggregate for his final three games. Koniar was never in the match, while Maciol made it pay at every visit.
He said, “I mean this is my first gold medal and I feel like I truly deserved that. I played very good matches today and I’m super, super happy that I managed to win the competition. Today, I played a very bad match in 8-ball in the morning and I was feeling very bad and after this match I was trying to recover as good as possible and I did, and playing the next matches was much easier for me. I think I was managing my energy very well in this tournament.
“Maybe the pressure was on me more but I just tried to stay focused and play my pool and I think I managed to finish every single rack in this match and play flawless. I will now spend some time with my friends for sure but the European Championships are still going and my goal, after this title, is to be MVP so I will take some time to recover more and I hope that this is not the end,” he added.
Bronze medals went to Serbia’s Aleksa Pecelj and Michael Schneider (Switzerland).
Ina Kaplan added to her straight pool silver medal with a dominant display to push aside Oliwia Zalewska and claim the 10-ball gold. Earlier she survived a semi-final hill-hill battle with 14.1 nemesis Linnea Hjalmarstrom to set her on her way. Kaplan, who has imperiously ruled the Women’s Euro Tour these past two years, has a less impressive record at the European Championships but it was something she used to her advantage.
She said, “I told myself ‘come on Ina, it’s the Euro Tour, it’s not the European Championship’, you played many Euro Tour finals and won so many Euro Tour titles so what’s the difference and yeah it worked out. It’s really nice, but two disciplines are coming and I’m looking forward to them!”
“I’m just glad that it worked out and I got my gold and I’m over the moon. I’ve played a lot of finals and the European Championships are not my place; the Euro Tour is no problem for me but the European Championships was always hard in the final – I played so many finals and even when I felt really good, I lost in the final so it’s the first time for me as 10-ball European Champion so I had to fight till the end and I did,” she concluded.
Completing the podium where Linnea Hjalmarstrom (SWE) and Austria’s Lena Primus.
Earlier today, the 8-ball events got underway in men’s and women’s categories and continue tomorrow (Thursday) when the Under 23s 8-ball tournament kicks off. In addition, both men’s and women’s team events start in the evening.
Tables 1, 2 and 3 at the Predator European Championships will be streamed throughout on YouTube, via the Pro Billiard TV channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ProBilliardTV
In addition, competing players are permitted to stream their own matches on outside tables to their public social media accounts.
For all results, live scoring and draw, visit www.epbf.com/tournaments/european-championships/
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