Due
to a delay at Las Vegas Airport I did not arrive on time at the German
Championships in Brandenburg, so that I missed the 14-1 competition.
In
8-Ball, my first opponent was C. Reimering. Many unsuccessful
breaks on both sides lead to a mediocre match. At the end, I had managed
to win 7-6. In my second match against S. Trautmann, I was trailing 0-4
after my opponent shot four aces in a row. A break foul gave me my first
opportunity of the match. I came back to 1-4 and didn’t succeed to pot a
ball upon my next break. In the next rack, Trautmann missed his position
on the 8 ball. He still managed to pot the 8 ball, but the cue ball fell
as well. I then managed to shot out the next 5 racks from the break and
entered the next round with a score of 7-4. Here, I had to play the new
German Champion in 14-1, T. Engert. After trailing 0-1, I played another
very good match and entered the quarter-finals with a 7-1 win.
Here, the draw made me play against J. Kaplan and I confirmed my good
shape by winning 9-4. In the semi-finals, I played Kaplans team mate J.
Blacklaw, who had defeated Engert in the losers bracket and Roschkowsky in
the semi-finals. The match went back and forth until I managed to take a
two rack lead at 8-6. After a mistake committed by my opponent, I was
about to play the match ball. I tried to play the last ball before the 8
ball, which was located right in front of the pocket, with some English
and had a bad contact between the cue ball and
the target ball. The ball was so easy and impossible to miss, but I
was tricked by physical laws and so the match finally became very tight
once more. At 8-8, I had another opportunity, which I almost missed. The
position on the 8 ball was all but easy, but I finally reached the final.
In the final, I played the junior player N. Ottermann, who had defeated in
the semi-finals World and European Champion T. Hohmann. The match had no
real pace, because both players did not succeed in their break shots.
After the break, there were always many difficult positions on the table
and so, the match had no real pace. After 1-3, 3-3, 3-6 and 6-6, I had my
first chance to take the lead. But I missed the last ball before the 8
ball and gave away the match. After this mistake, I did not come back to
the table and had to give in 6-9. In spite of the silver medal, I was very
unsatisfied. My performances on the previous matches were very well, but
in the final I committed too many mistakes and had a bad break shot.
The 9-Ball competition started right after
the medal ceremony. In my first match against M. Georgopulos, I played
better again and won 9-4. My second match was against T. Hasch. At the
beginning, I was trailing 0-3, because my opponent forced me to commit
fouls by playing a concentrated safety game. After a mistake by my
opponent, I could take the initiative and take the lead at 4-3. Because it
was already very late and because the match went along at a very slow pace,
we had to play with a shot clock of 35 seconds per shot. My opponent was
very upset about this and started to blame me for this. Since he then had
problems when racking up the balls, there were more and more interferences
and finally, he shook my hand after the match (9-4) through his towel.
In round 4, I had to play
T. Hohmann. He developed a lot of momentum right from the start and took a
fast 2-0 lead. In the third rack and after a series of safety shots, I had
the possibility to come back. But when making the 8 ball, I dropped the
cue ball. The current World Champion benefited and took a 6-0 lead. In
rack 7, he offered me a long 1 ball with a push out. I made the 1 ball and
could score the first rack. I came back into the match and could score
until 5-6. At 6-7, I played a good safety, but then Hohmann not only
contacted the 3 ball, but potted it with a rail shot in the middle pocket
and took a 8-6 lead. I then won the next two racks and then ran out the
table in the decisive 17th rack to finally win 9-8. Then, the
draw made me play T. Engert. Just like in the European Championships final
a few weeks ago, I committed
a bad safety and he developed the score from 0-1 to 6-1. The intermediate
scores were 9-2 and 10-4 for Engert. But I fought my way back into the
match and could equal the score at 10-10. At the decisive break, I potted
not less than 4 balls, but, as so often in this championships, my break
wasn’t controlled and I had to play a long entry ball. I missed the 2
ball, but was lucky that it remained covered behind another ball. Engert
played a safety and when I contacted the target ball, I split the balls
open. My opponent potted the remaining balls and entered the semi-finals
against A. Roschkowsky. In the semi-finals, Engert won as well as
Hohmann (vs. Zobrekis). Current World Champion Hohmann defeated
current European Champions 11-9 and won his second national title after
his 14-1 title last year.
After
a high number of good matches, I wasn’t satisfied with rank 5 and closed
the German Championships 2004 as a bad experience for me. I do not know
yet if I will participate next year, since the German federation DBU wants
to organize the Championships together with the Snooker and Carom
disciplines and the planned time slot in November 2005 is at 95 % in
conflict with the Asia Tour.