Nick Malai (GRE) defeated Austrian top player Albin Ouschan (AUT) with 9:6 in the first winner’s round of the Dynamic Billard Austrian Open.
There seems to be a curse on Austrian players here in St. Johann. The tournament is held here for the 5th time and never has an Austrian player been able to win the open event. This year, things were looking prosperous for Albin Ouschan. He came here as nr.1 World ranked player. But he could not find his game at all. To the contrary, he played a lot of bad shots, committed fouls, missed easy balls and played bad safety shots. Ouschan seemed to be disgusted with his own performance. Malai capitalized for that. He also started out with some mistakes but then he got momentum since Ouschan left him too many chances. It all started in rack two when Malai missed an easy 8-ball and left it there for Ouschan. The Austrian pocketed the 8-ball and then missed the 9-ball. It can hardly be told when Ouschan missed so many shots the last time. After a while, Malai got going and his break started to work better. Whatever Ouschan did, he could not get into his own rhythm. Being in the lead 7:3, Malai tried to take the shortcut on the hill and attempted a combination shot on the 9-ball. He failed and gave the table to Ouschan. The Austrian ran the rack and the crowd was hoping for him to start a comeback. But already in the next rack, Ouschan missed another easy shot to give the table to Malai who went on the hill with 8:4. Then, Malai missed an 8-ball and Ouschan managed to pull two racks back from Malai. However, one could tell by the body language of Ouschan that he had almost given up on himself. At 6:8, Malai took the final point and won the match with 9:6. „I have really benefitted from my opponent’s mistakes“, stated Malai after the match, „the match was not good but I handled the situation better.“ „Luck was also a factor in this match, but I think in the end my break worked better and that’s why I won the match in the end“, Malai added.
Other remarkable results include Marek Kudlik (POL) defeating Karl Boyes (GBR) in the first winner’s round 9:3. Daniel Tangudd (SWE), member of Team Europe at the recent Atlantic Challenge Cup, won his two matches of the day 9:8 over Mats Schjetne (NOR) and 9:2 over Sebastian Batkowski (POL). Petri Makkonen (FIN) took down Karlo Dalmatin (CRO) 9:7.
The current nr.1 ranked player of the Euro-Tour, Niels „The Terminator“ Feijen (NED) easily won his first appearance at the Dynamic Billard Austrian Open 2015 with a 9:4 victory over Damian Adamus (POL). BCA Hall of Famer Ralf Souquet (GER) also marched on into the second winner’s round by smashing Salah Ziyaei (UAE) 9:2.
The action will continue tomorrow at 09:00 with the matches of the second loser’s round.
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The event is hosted by the European Pocket Billiard Federation EPBF and organized by International Billiard Promotion Foundation IBPF.