NEWS  March 6, 2008  Gema 9-Ball Open – Souquet upsets Feijen

For the first time, the Gema 9-Ball Open was played in Athens, Greece with a full field of 128 participants. The Gema Club, especially owner Nikos Berberidis, had done everything possible to attract some top players of the billiards world to Greece.

The format was a double KO bracket in races to 9 with winner break, and the races in the KO bracket of the last 16 players were extended.

In round one, my opponent was a Greek player named Strevinas. After some difficulties in the early stage of the match, I finally got used to the very slow cushions and had adapted my position game to this speed. I managed to win 9-4 and jumped over the first hurdle. In my second match against another Greek player, Aris Verdian, I could stabilize my form and entered the next round with an undisputed 9-1 success. Again, my next opponent on the next day was another player from Greece. After another slow start, I could improve my game and finally won 9-3.

My fourth opponent was surprisingly 16 years old Alex Kazakis, who had eliminated with Nick Malai and Nikos Oikonomopoulos two heavy weights. At the beginning, he played again without any fear and the match was pretty balanced. At 3-3, I could benefit from two concentration errors by the young Greek and that was enough to direct the match toward another win. Even if I lost another rack, young Kazakis could not help losing 4-9. I now had reached the final KO bracket of the last 16 players, something some of the seeded player did not achieve. After a third round defeat against Dutchman Nick van den Berg, US player Earl Strickland was stuck in the loser’s bracket. Of course, there was a lot of talking and blaming others. I could not fully understand why I was involved in his complaints, but then I understood. I was playing on the next table and had to listen to many “nice things” about my break. I do not want to comment on the other allegations, some of them far below the belt. However, a bit later, „The Pearl“ was eliminated losing 6-9 against the Greek number 1, John Vassalos.

In the next round, my opponent was once again – from Greece. But John Mantzaris did not stand much of a chance and I won 11-2.

In the quarter-finals, Andreas Lampris was the sixth Greek player I had to play and so, my personal “Greek Open” continued. The match was very balanced until 6-6 and none of the two managed to take a substantial advantage. But then, I took control Over the match, cleared a few tables and finally entered the semi-finals winning 11-6.

The final was a match in a race to 13 and I won the first rack, but then missed a not too difficult 8 ball in rack two and instead of leading 2-0, Feijen came back into the match and took a 5-2 lead. But upon a black break by my opponent, I came back into the match and took the lead on my side 7-5. The next racks went back and forth until 9-7. I was about to score the first 3 rack lead in this match, but was not concentrated when playing my position from the 8 ball to the 9 ball. The cue ball was too close and had too much angle on the 9 ball, so I had to play very thin and with a lot of power. But I hit the 9 ball far too thin and the cue ball dropped in the corner pocket. Feijen scored the rack, but could not benefit from this situation to score more racks. I won the next two racks to lead 11-8, before Feijen came back to 9-11. In rack 21, upon a good safety by Feijen, I played a dream of a bank shot on the 1 ball and pocketed it in the middle pocket. I also pocketed the following 2 on 4 combination, but the 2 ball traveled so close to the 9 ball, that I could not pocket it anymore directly. I tried to pocket the 9 ball with another kiss shot, but hit the 2 ball too full and the 9 ball not at all. However, the 2 ball traveled lucky over 2 rails into the middle pocket, and the 12-9 was at hand. But I missed an easy 5 ball and had to leave the table to Feijen. But by now, fatigue started to set in and off went the concentration. While I did not hope for this rack anymore, Feijen made another mistake and missed an almost straight 7 ball. I could benefit from this occasion to score the 12-9 and ran out the next table to finally win 13-9.