NEWS - 10-19-03 German Open 9-Ball – Storm defends his lead

At the second last stop of this season’s 2003 Eurotour, around 170 players participated in the competition. The qualifying groups were played in two different locations. About half of the competitors played in Neuwied and had to travel by Sunday to St. Ingbert for the final round.

After a walk-through, I played M. Rother from Poland and won 9-3. In round 3, my opponent was G. Smit (NED). I could improve my game a bit and fully deserved to win 9-4. For a spot in the final round, I had to play Yassin from Freiburg, Germany. My opponent seemed to be nervous and could not make use of the opportunities he had. The final score of 9-1 may be a bit severe, but here again, I deserved to win.

In the final round, the draw made me play B. Beekers (NED) who came from the loser’s bracket. I played quite well and booked a 9-4. On the final day, my first opponent was M. Schmidt from Bremen, Germany. After a good start and a comfortable lead, I started to make mistakes and let my opponent come back into the match. The intermediate scores were 5-1, 6-3 and 6-6. Finally, my nerves were a bit more solid, I could overcome my weakness and finally won 9-7 and entered the quarter-finals. Here, I had to play C. Reimering (GER), who had just eliminated M. Tschudi from Switzerland in the previous round. Tschudi in turn had accomplished a stunning 9-0 in the first KO round over the current World Champion, shooting not less than 8 aces. A great number of opportunities remained unused on both sides, and so the match became more and more of a pure battle. After leading 2-0 and trailing 3-6, I could benefit from Reimering’s mistakes and enter the semi-final with a 9-7 win. Now, my opponent was the overall ranking leader T. Storm from Sweden. Again, I had a good start and was already leading 3-1, when I made two consecutive mistakes and thus let the match slip through my fingers. From this moment on, Storm played an almost perfect match and finally deserved to win 9-3. His opponent in the final was T. Engert (GER), who played with a walking aid, because he had torn his ligaments when playing tennis. Storm played as nonchalantly as in almost all of his matches. He only had to struggle once, when he defeated D. Alcaide from Spain 9-8, all his other matches had straight scores. He also won the final 9-4 and could not only defend his overall ranking lead, but even extend it. The second third place went to F. Hammer.