In the men’s 8-ball competition at the Dynamic Billard European Championships in St. Johann i.Pg., Austria, Ralf Souquet (GER) defeated Stephan Cohen (FRA) with 8:5.
It was a duel of two grand masters. Both players are around in the pool circuit for quite some time now and they know each other ver well. Cohen came to the winner’s qualification round by winning 8:7 only over Petr Urban (CZE). Ralf Souquet had the same result in his favor against Marsel Safiullin (RUS). So both players had a hill-hill thriller stuck in their bones from the previous round. They played very carefully and slow in order to not make any mistake that the opponent might have benefitted from. After eight racks, the score was tied at 4:4. So far, none of the two players was able to gain an advantage of more than one rack over the other. But then, Souquet managed to get a 6:4 lead over Cohen. That was exactly what he needed. Cohen could not even that mistake out anymore and being 7:5 up, Souquet won another rack and ended the match in his favor with 8:5. Cohen will play the loser’s qualification round against the winner of Onuc Altur and Osman Sanlisoy (both TNC). Other interesting results in the men’s 8-ball competition today include defending Champion Niels Feijen (NED) winning 8:3 against his teammate Marc Bijsterbosch (NED). A surprise happened in the match between Sergiu Voicu (ROM) and Sebastian Ludwig (GER). Voicu took the match with 8:7 from the German. Also not expected was Christian Sparrenloev-Fischer’s (SWE) victory with 8:5 over Juan Carlos Exposito (ESP). Petri Makkonen (FIN) defeated Mario He (AUT) 8:6 in the same round.
In the women’s 8-ball competition, a huge surprised occurred when Jasmin Ouschan (AUT) lost her opening match against Amalia Matas (ESP) with 3:6. The two-time Gold Medallist from this week now needs to take the longest way possible if she wants to conquer this title as well. Defending Champion in 8-ball is Caroline Roos (SWE). She will play her first match tomorrow morning at 09:00 CET against Melanie Suessenguth (GER). More remarkable results from today include Ana Gradisnik (SLO) winning 6:4 over Katarzyna Wesolowska (POL). Sandra Baumgartner (AUT) defeated Christine Feldmann (SUI) by a whisker with 6:5. Kamila Khodjaeva (BEL) handed a doughnut to Johanna Vartianen (FIN) and crushed her 6:0.
In the wheelchair division, only three matches were played today. Jouni Tahti (FIN) defeated David Himpe (BEL) clearly with 5:1. Daniel Lee (GBR) got the better of Kim-Ronny Nygaard (NOR) with 5:4 and Danijel Savic (AUT) won 5:3 over David Slacek (SLO).
The quarter-finals in the men’s team came up with the following results:
Sweden vs Slovakia 2:0
Germany vs Portugal 2:0
Spain vs Finland 1:2
Russia vs Austria 2:1
The loser’s qualification matches in the women’s teams ended as follows:
Germany vs Belgium 2:1
Poland vs Austria 2:1
The Dynamic Billard European Championships will continue tomorrow morning at 09:00 local time with matches in the 8-ball individuals. The teams semifinals will commence at 18:00 with the finals to follow straight after.
The Championships are played on 24 tables which will all be streamed LIVE throughout the whole event. 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 www.epconline.eu, visit us on Facebook or check out our youtube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office press@epbf.com.