At the Dynamic Billard North Cyprus Open Euro-Tour in Kyrenia, North Cyprus, most of the seeded and expected players have made their way through to the last 32 single elimination stage which will be played tonight at 21:00 local time.
Mark Gray (GBR) was successful today in his role as the favorite in the tournament. In the winner’s qualification round he defeated Karol Skowerski (POL) 9:3 without further problems. Also his toughest challenger on 2nd place, Niels Feijen (NED) is straight on track. 9:2 was the clear final result of Feijen over Roman Hybler (CZE). Former World Champion and BCA Hall of Famer Oliver Ortmann (GER) had an appointment with long-time rival Ivica Putnik (CRO). The encounter went according to Ortmann’s liking, since he was the 9:6 winner in the end. A bit more of a surprise was the performance of young Daniel Tangudd (SWE) who managed to remain the upper hand over Poland’s Mateusz Sniegocki 9:7. The match between Sniegocki’s teammate Tomasz Kaplan (POL) and Germany’s Ralf Souquet, also former World Champion and BCA Hall of Famer, turned out to be a heartbreaker. Leading 8:7, Kaplan played a poor safety shot and left a possible combination shot on the 9-ball for Souquet. The German pocketed the 9-ball and the match was hill-hill. Then, Souquet had the break shot and all he found after it was the possibility of another combination shot 1-ball to the 9-ball. Souquet went for it and missed the 9-ball but left the cue ball intentionally hidden behind the 2-ball. Kaplan got to the table and pocketed the 1-ball with a jump shot and ran the rack and the match from there. This took Kaplan to the single elimination with 9:8 while Souquet gets another shot on the loser’s side. In the all-Spanish clash between Francisco Diaz-Pizarro and David Alcaide, Diaz Pizarro turned out to be the 9:7 winner in the end.
An exception to the rule today were Nick van den Berg (NED) and Konrad Juszczyszyn (POL). They were the seeded players in group G and both of them could not make it through the winner’s round. Van den Berg lost to outstanding youngster Wiktor Zielinski (POL) with 7:9 while Juszczyszyn fell to the sharp blade of Eklent Kaci (ALB) 5:9. Zielinski and Kaci are both from the very young generation and it will be interesting to see how far they can go in this and future events. However, the event is not yet over for van den Berg and Juszczyszyn. They will also get another shot to qualify for the single elimination.
Andreas Madsen (DEN) took down „The Maharaja“ Imran Majid (GBR) 9:6 in the same round. „Eagle-Eye“ Jayson Shaw (SCO), who lives in the United States for quite some years now, has also made his way to the last 32 players. He defeated Marek Kudlik (POL) clearly 9:2.
The round of the last 32 players single elimination starts tonight at 21:00 local time. Currently, the matches of the loser’s qualification round are about to get started. For further information, check out our websites.
The tournaments are all played on 20 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 is 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, womeneurotouronline.com , visit us on Facebook or check out our youtube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office press@epbf.com.