NEWS  January 31, 2008    Weert Open 9-Ball – Reimering upsets Ortmann

 
The 9th edition of the Weert Open was played again in the House of Billiards in Weert and tournament director Maurice Houben could only register some 180 participants fort his event. This was the lowest number of competitors ever and the director was not the only one to be unhappy about this. The general mood was not as good as in the previous years, but at least, it did not affect the quality of the matches.

After a walk-through, my first opponent was the Spanish player Brais Pino, whom I defeated 6-0, but who managed to qualify for the main round of the last 64 players by making his way through the losers bracket. In my next match, I already played form y spot in the final round against So Shaw from England. Again, I played well and entered the final round by winning 6-2.

The next day, we started with a Challenge Match in 10-Ball against Mosconi Cup team mate Niels Feijen from the Netherlands. Some seats remained empty around the Center Court, but I played an almost error-free set and won 13-4 against my Dutch opponent.

So, I was boosted fort he final round and my first opponent here was the German player Dieter Sellbach. The format was now KO matches in races to 8 and I won this match on the clearest of all scores 8-0. In the round of the last 32 players, I was opposed to another German player, Christian Reimering, and I had a bad start, since I gave away the first two racks. In the first rack, I played a bad position from the 6 to the 7 ball, so that I ran out of position on the 8 ball, which I missed using the extension cue. I returned to the table at 0-3 and scored the 1-3. Then, I missed my entry shot on the 1 ball after the break. After two very good safety shots, the 1 ball was very difficult to hit for Reimering. However, he managed to hit it very thin over three cushions and he was lucky that the cue ball traveled so close to the 2 ball, that I could not help the foul. He had ball in hand and could increase his lead and I only could score again later to reduce the score to 3-5. I rolled an easy 2 ball towards the middle pocket, but it never got there, because I had played it too weak. Again, Reimering had Ball in Hand and could score the rack. This was the last mistake of the match and I lost 4-8 to finish the tournament on a disappointing 17th rank.