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At
the 37th edition of the All Japan Championships in Amagasaki, every top
player in Asia was present. In addition, 5 players from North America and 2
from Europe were competing.
In
the first match against K.-K. Chan from Singapore, I was rapidly trailing
0-3 and 1-4. Then the score was 2-5 and 4-7 before I slowly started to shift
gears. I made use of a mistake by my opponent to finally win the match 9-7.
My second opponent, T. Lianhan, was also from Singapore. Again, I had a bad
start and was trailing 0-2. But this time, I found my composure faster than
before and entered the next round with a 9-3 success. Here, C.-W. Fu was
waiting for me, a strong player from Taiwan. I never found my way into the
match and finally deserved to lose 5-9. In the losers bracket, I now played
T. Fujimoto from Japan. As an exception to the rule, I had a good start and
was rapidly leading 7-2. After a few racks for both players, the score
evolved to 8-5 and the Japanese player even came back to 7-8. In rack 16, he
had a bad position on the 9 ball and missed it. And thanks to my 9-7 success,
I had entered the final KO round of the last 32 players.
According
to the Japanese way, first there was a draw of the order and then of the
matches, where a winner always played a loser.
The draw made me play
against T.-H. Cheng from Taiwan. He won the first rack and in the second
rack, we had a safety battle going on four times. I had the better end and
could equal the score. Then, I ran out 9 of the last 10 racks, so that my
opponent did not stand a chance and finally had to give in 1-11. The same
happened to the Philippine players E. Reyes, F. Bustamante and A. Pagulayan,
who all lost to players from Taiwan.
In
the round of the last 16 players, I faced K. Hoshi from Japan, who
surprisingly had upset H.-K. Hsia from Taiwan. Hoshi could only play a
balanced match until half-time, but then he suffered from the fact that he
had already made use of his 3 time extensions allocated to each player for
each match. In the end, he literally ran out of time and so committed a few
mistakes. I won 11-6 and had entered, like in the previous year, the
quarter-finals. Here, I played P. Ooi from Malaysia, who also had played an
excellent tournament with clear results. I lost the first two racks, but
then played better and I took a 10-4 lead. My opponent came back to 6-10,
but finally could not help the 6-11 defeat.
I had entered the semi-finals and my opponent was F.-P. Chao from Taiwan,
who had won his quarter-final against Y.-H. Jeong from Korea in a real
thriller 11-10.
I took a rapid 3-0 lead
and then was trailing 3-4. I won the next three racks and re-gain a 6-4 lead.
From now on, I could defend my advantage and even aggravate the score and
finally, I entered the final with a 11-6 success.
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Souquet-Kajitan
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In
the final, we played a new edition of the clash against M. Immonen
(FIN), against whom I had played the final in Atlanta a few weeks
ago and who had won 13-3 at the time.
But this time, it was a
tight race, and the lead changed all the time until 6-6. In the
meantime, both players committed a few position mistakes, which was
due to the fact that we both had played our last three matches on
one of the four Metro tables and the final was played on a Goldcrown
4. Due to the usual short warm-up time, limited to just one rack,
chances were slight to get used to these new conditions at once.
Many of the positions were too long, since the reflection from the
rail was much harder and faster. I had the better break and could
take the lead at 8-6 and even 10-7. In rack 18, I had a chance to
win the match, but missed a feasible 1 ball and brought the player
from Finland back into the match. He could come back to 9-10 and in
rack 20, he had a difficult 1-9 combination on the table. He missed
it and lost the cue ball with this shot. But the 2 ball had moved so
close to the 8 ball that it was very difficult, even with ball in
hand, to gain a good position on the 2 ball. Even if I could pot the
2
ball,
I had to play a double contact with the 8 ball to gain a position on
the 3 ball. This position worked out fine, but the 8 ball moved on
dead in front of the 9 ball and I had another problem to solve. Now,
when potting the 7 ball, I had to try to position the cue ball
between the 8 ball and the 9 ball. I managed to do so and now had to
play the 8 ball with the left hand or using the bridge. I decided to
play it left-handed and offered myself a nice match ball. After
potting the 9 ball, all the tension broke free and I really was
relieved. With my 11-9 success, I won my first title at the All
Japan Championships and could add another world ranking tournament
to my record. Immonen lost his third final this year and was visibly
disappointed.
In
the womens competition, A. Kajitani from Japan won her third title
in the 37 years history of this tournament with a 9-3 success over
Y.-C. Lin from Taiwan.
Third places went to „Velvet“ S. Ellerby from England who lives
in Florida and P.-C. Tsai from Taiwan.
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Ralf-Giselle
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