THE THREE 8-BALL tournaments concluded on Saturday evenimg at the PREDATOR EPBF European Pool Championships and it was gold-medal success for Juan Carlos Exposito (Spain), Austria’s Jasmin Ouschan and Yuma Dorner of Germany in the Under 23 division.
Both men’s finals saw come-from-behind victories, as Dorner edged past countryman Dennis Laszkowski while Exposito looked buried against Emil-Andre Gangflot (NOR) before prevailing in a deciding rack. Ouschan was pushed all the way by Spain’s Mayte Ropero before edging the victory down the home stretch.
Exposito had trailed 6-0 and 7-3 against a rampaging Gangflot before somehow summoning the resolve to claw his way back as events conspired against the young Norwegian. Dry breaks and the smallest of positional errors gave the Spanish shooter chances that he didn’t spurn and when Exposito missed the scratch off the break in the last rack it seemed a sign that the gold medal was his.
He said, “European champion 8-ball is a dream for me. I enjoyed the match at the end but at the beginning I didn’t enjoy that much! I was 6-0, 7-3 down and I was thinking all the time that if you have a chance, take it. It a European final so you never play freely - it’s a lot of responsibility. There are many, many rounds to be here and you never know when you’ll be back, if ever, so you have to take your chance.
“I’ll have to see the end again because I don’t know what happened. The last game on the break, the cue ball almost scratched. I’ll enjoy this with my colleagues and I also have my family here, which is nice,” he added.
Jasmin Ouschan showed her champions mettle as she survived a day of near misses to outlast the field as she claimed yet another Predator European Championship gold. She had trailed 5-3 to Lena Primus in the quarter-final and then Sara Rocha 4-2 in the last four. In the final, she let a 4-1 lead go against Mayte Ropero before powering away for a 6-4 victory.
Commented Jasmin, “Winning another title of course feels great. I’m really happy that I could pull it off in the end. Of course, I’m a competitor so I don’t just want to win I want to perform well and today was quite a challenge for me. It was a big fight from start to finish and for whatever reason destiny wanted me to really fight for that one. I’m glad it all worked out in the end, I got the rolls at the right time.
“I was behind all the time, having really tough racks and I had to fight back and had to work for it. Next time I’m going to make sure that I’m in front. I think it was definitely the right decision to take a couple of days off. I can still feel the jetlag a little bit but overall, really OK, so there’s no excuse. Today was tough because we had four matches in a row so obviously that is draining but I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, I’m experienced enough. I’m happy with my decision and I’m here now with another title so I can’t really complain!”
Germany’s Yuma Dorner beat defending champion Dennis Laszkowski 8-5 in a hard-fought match to take Under 23 8-ball honours. Dorner goes about his work in a quiet, efficient manner and has crossed all the hurdles put in front of him as career continues in an upward trajectory. He had previously won European Championship gold at Under 19 level as well as the U23 9-ball gold last year.
He said, “It feels very good of course, it’s always different playing a friend. I always try to do the same in every match but the mental side may be different because it’s a final and more pressure but I tried to do the same all the time and It’s always good to see the hard work pay off.”
9-ball starts tomorrow (Sunday) at 9.00 with tournaments in the three divisions.
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
For all results, live scoring and draw, visit www.epbf.com/tournaments/european-championships/
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