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The
fourth tournament of the Eurotour was played in Rankweil, Austria. In the
“Patricks“, the conditions were excellent and the not too hot weather
gave us temperatures which made playing much easier than in the previous
years.
Being
ranked 11th, I belonged to the 32 players who were directly
qualified for stage 2 and who only had to play the 64 field in double KO
format.
My first opponent was Petri Makkonen from Finland
and I won 10-8. In my next match, I was opposed to his fellow countryman
Markus Juva, who played much better and deserved to defeat me 10-6. I
started my way through the losers’ bracket against the Czech player Roman
Hybler who lives in Munich. I had a head start and was rapidly leading 5-0.
Then I started to make some mistakes and had to watch Hybler come back.
After an intermediate score of 4-5, I won a few racks and the score evolved
to 7-4 and 9-6. But then, the match became tight again, before I finally won
10-8. In the next match against my fellow countryman Christoph Reintjes, I
showed my best tournament performance so far and scored an undisputed 10-3.
Now, I had to play for the qualification against the Polish player Hubert
Łopotko. I played well again and was “supported” by my opponent who
happened to miss a few opportunities. By winning 10-3, I was qualified for
the round of the last 16 players in KO format the next day. Here, my
opponent was the number one of the overall ranking, Niels Feijen from the
Netherlands. The match was very balanced, but I missed a possible lead at an
early stage of the match. At 6-6, I could have taken the lead, but the cue
ball dropped in the middle pocket when
potting the 1 ball, even if the pocket seemed to be fully blocked by the 2
ball. I could not understand how this could happen and had to watch Feijen
making the best out of the situation and taking a 9-6 lead. I won another
rack, but finally was beaten 7-10 and finished on the 9th rank.
In
the final, Tony Drago from Malta played John Vassalos from Greece and the
Greek player won on the tightest of all scores 10-9. Third places went to
Dutchman Nick van den Berg and Markus Juva from Finland.
Vassalos
made a huge leap in the overall ranking from rank 199 to rank 83. I climbed from rank 11 to 8. New overall leader is Konstantin Stepanov from
Russia before Jonni Fulcher from Switzerland and Dutchman Niels Feijen.
Italian player Fabio Petroni is fourth.
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