THE PREDATOR SPANISH Open got underway today in both open and women’s divisions at the Gandia Palace Hotel. With a 9.00 start, players were up early to battle their way through a 190-strong field in the open and 60-strong line-up in the women’s. In total 29 players left the open competition, while in the women’s everyone lived to fight another day.
Following hot on the heels of his gold medal triumph at the Predator WPA Junior World Championships on Wednesday, Poland’s Jakub Chrobot carried on his fine form, enjoying two wins over Mohammad Al Asfar and Claude Jezequel respectively, to stay on the winners’ side.
Chrobot was still processing his World Championship victory; “I still feel this match (the final) and this whole tournament that I won and I still have emotions about it. I’m getting used to it and I’m really happy and enjoying another event.
“The beginning of the match (v Jezequel) was a bit tough to focus but when I started winning a few racks I was feeling really comfortable and was playing almost perfectly. I feel that I’m younger than everyone, almost, so it maybe a bit surprising that I’m playing this good, if somebody doesn’t know me. I know that here, almost everyone can play really well so I have to just play my best,” he concluded.
A player looking to find some form here is Serbia’s Aleksa Pecelj and he also enjoyed two victories against high-quality opposition, firstly defeating Portugal’s Joao Grilo 8-3 and then gutting out an 8-7 win over Casper Matikainen, which was where we caught up with him.
Pecelj said, “It was a really good match, high level and it was kind of weird because both of our breaks didn’t work so we had to play a lot of safeties and dig deep. But I’m very happy that I managed to win.
“In the last rack, I kind of felt that I broke perfect but the balls made a cluster and we had to play a lot of safes and I misjudged the position from the 2 to the 3 and then I had to dig deep and deep and I was missing position and every time it was tricky but I managed to run out at the end. I feel I’ve been playing really well for a couple of months. I’m feeling good and stay patient, don’t focus on the next match and focus ball-by-ball and hopefully go deep.”
The Predator Women’s Spanish Open broke off today as 60 players began their quest to bag the final Euro Tour title of the year. Boasting its biggest field including a clutch of Asian-based stars, one young emerging European player is looking to follow up on what has been a great season for her. Lena Primus (Austria), the 2021 WPA Junior World 9-Ball Champion, has reached a semi as well as a quarter-final so far this year, and got her tournament underway with a tidy 6-3 win over Germany’s Romina Lenk.
She said, “It was OK; it was my first match today and that can be kind of hard and it took me a few racks to feel the table and get a good feeling but then in the end it was getting better and better.
So far this season, I’m quite happy. Of course, I’d like to have played in one or two more semi-finals but that’s the way it is. I’m practicing a lot especially the last few weeks, as I had a break and spent a lot of time with my coach which was good. I think the stronger the competition, the better it is for the whole tournament and it’s nice to have the Asian players here.”
Action resumes on Friday morning at 9.00 and streaming of Tables 1 and 2 for all Euro Tour and European Championships events can be found on YouTube, via the Pro Billiard TV channel - https://www.youtube.com/@
For all results, live scoring and draw, visit https://www.epbf.com/