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The third event of this year’s Eurotour in Sindelfingen / GER had 183
participants – even if the field was not complete, all great European
names were there.
Ranked no. 7, I had a walk-through in round one. My first opponent was B.
Houben from the Netherlands, the brother of the Eurotour promoter in Weert.
The professional cook had controlled the match and until his 7-2 lead, he
had only missed one single ball. But on the final meters before the arrival,
he seemed to realize that he could win the match and missed not less than 4
good opportunities to win the match. Finally, I was very lucky to win the
match 9-8, but I also deserved to win. In the next match against P. Rogalski
from Poland, I looked already like the winner and finally lost 8-9. I
don’t know if the reason was my strained ankle. When x-raying in the
hospital in Sindelfingen, nothing particular could be detected and so I had
to stabilize the foot with some balm and a compress.
In the 4 round of the losers bracket, I played K. Zobrekis (GER). In this
match, nothing went right. I limped from shot to shot and missed a huge
number of balls. However, I managed to win 9-7. In the next match against
the Dutch EC participant M. Hakim, things went better and I won 9-6. In the
decisive match against the Greek A. Kiriakidis who lives in Böblingen, I
had enough concentration late at night to win 9-3 and to qualify for the
final round of 32 players the next day. But I had an unlucky draw, since I
had to play ne no. 1 of the Eurotour ranking, N. Feijen (NED). The match
went back and forth. Each player won his break and we continued without any
mistake to 7-7. Then, Feijen dropped the cue ball and I benefited from this
opportunity to win 9-7. My next opponent was Dutchman N. van den Berg, who
had just eliminated M. Immonen from Finland. This match was very balanced
until 4-4. At 4-5, I missed a feasable 5 ball and van den Berg took a 7-4
lead. Then, the cue ball fell after being contacted by another ball and I
had lost 4-9. Once more, I was eliminated from a Eurotour event in round 4
and this slowly becomes a trauma.
Best German player was J. Kaplan who plays for Bergisch Gladbach, who did
not master the conditions in his semi-final against M. Chamat (SWE) and who
lost clearly 2-9. The second semi-final went to N. van den Berg who upset
Junior World Champion V. Földes from Hungary 9-3, so that Földes finished
third. The final was a thriller and the Swede seemed to be the winner. But
he could not keep his 8-5 lead and after losing 8-8, he had to make do with
the second rank. I have seen this before....
The Dutchman jumped in the overall ranking from rank 23 to 6. I could
progress from rank 7 to rank 5. And we have a new leader - S. Tot (HUN) is
leading again in front of Feijen (NED), Chamat (SWE) and Lely (NED).
The next stop of the Tour
is June 9 to 11 in Rankweil /AUT.
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