PROMASENS/RONCHIN - 40-year-old Xavier Gretillat is a policeman in the small Swiss village Promasens and outside he's known as a great billiard player. Three European titles in the balk-lines show us that he's one of the best players in this discipline. This week he debuts with the French Chartres team at European level at the European championships for teams in Ronchin.
The Swiss player himself has built up a huge honor roll with the German team of Bochum. And he already recorded many individual successes: Gretillat was European champion 47/2 twice, European 71/2 once (2007) gathered seven times European silver, was seven-times German team champion and took 42 individual Swiss titles.
The list of achievements is impressive for a player who is on the streets every day as a police man, never took lessons and likes to spend his time with his girlfriend and his 12-year-old daughter. ,,The time to practice that remains and to play matches is around 20 hours per week.''
His favorite game type: one cushion. And one of the most recent successes: the victory over Frédéric Caudron at the Euro Grand Prix in Hoogeveen this year, where he lost the final against Jean Paul de Bruijn.
The ultimate challenge is to achieve his ability to play all game types of series to improve his skills and to add three cushion. I don't have enough time in one day, because I'm working a lot in my policeman job, but since 2013, I have more time to train, so I also learned to play three cushion as well. I give myself three years to get 1.000 average.''
Xavier Gretillat is performing for Bochum in Germany for ten years, playing balk-line 47/2. His team is the German record holder since the semifinals in 2012: 47/2 and 71/2 in one inning, one cushion in four innings. He's playing international tournaments for Chartres now for the second year, the European final will be his first with the team.
The challenge is still there for the Swiss, who saw his first billiard table at thirteenth years of age during a holiday with his school. And got more and more interested in the game with two white and one red ball...
,,My main challenge is to have fun in the game and of course, try to win my games. I play the World championship one cushion this year and I know that I'm able to perform well there.''
Xavier Gretillat keeps himself in a good shape by running and swimming. ,,But my favorite sport is mountain climbing.''
The big favorite for the European title? ,,We all know that Etikon is hard to beat, but it's not impossible. We have a good team with Chartres, in which all players must be able to finish in one inning. So... we are very hopefull.''
The groups for the European championship, which starts on Friday:
Group A:
BCCO Ronchin (France): Djoubri, JF Florent, Villiers, Dessaint, J. Florent en Reynaert.
Chartres (France): Gretillat, Gerimont, Justice, Girard en Formont.
Bochum (Germany): Blondeel, Havlik, Nockemann, Wiedemann, Berger, Kimmerskamp.
Group B:
Etikon (Netherlands): Tilleman, Niessen, De Bruijn, Ter Braak, Van Geel.
Sueca (Spain): Cuenca, Mata, Christiani, Garriga, Ortells.
Andernos (France): Baudoin, Gerassimopoulos, De Backer, Picart, Arnaud, Connesson.