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Thursday-Saturday 7-9 July 2011

Spain's Del Santo-Sanz without a chance against European 9-Ball Champion

With an impressive performance, Nick van den Berg (NED) defeated Javier Del Santo-Sanz (ESP) with a clear 9:1 score. At no time in the match did Del Santo seem to have a real chance against the current European 9-Ball Champion.

Van den Berg had the first break shot and made no ball. Del Santo played a safety shot and forced van den Berg to play a foul. Then, the Spanish player failed to get position on the 5-ball and had to execute a jump shot. He almost pocketed the 5-ball but leaves an easy shot for Nick van den Berg who runs out to take the first rack.

Then Del Santo breaks the 9-ball but unfortunately for him, no more balls cross the head string or are pocketed so the break is counted as a �dry break� where the 9-ball is respotted and the opponent gets the option to accept the table and continue play. In this rack, both players played some safety shots until Del Santo gets the chance after a bad safety from van den Berg to take the rack. He misses an easy shot instead and van den Berg increases his lead to 2:0.

The next racks are all determined by two things: Safety play by both players and missed shots by Del Santo. One rack after the other goes into the account of the young Dutch player.

In the end, both players seemed to struggle with their break shot. Nick van den Berg was clearly better and more solid in pocketing balls on the table with these tight pockets. He therefore deserved the win and took the match with a clear 9:1.

After the match, van den Berg said: �Congratulations to the organizer on these tight pockets. They really make the difference. If you lose your focus for one single moment, you will be punished and the ball will not go in. These are real Championship tables�.

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Other notable results include Oliver Ortmann (GER) beating Jonni Fulcher (GBR) with 9:4. Fulcher�s fellow countryman Mark Gray (GBR) overpowered female player Ana Majirina from Russia with 9:6 in the first winner�s round. Austria�s Juergen Jenisy remained victorious over Britain�s Scott Higgins with 9:7. As a small upset, unknown Moritz Lauwereyness (BEL) outscored Francisco Diaz (ESP) with 9:8. Imran Majid (GBR) was able to reach the next round with a 9:5 victory over Babken Melkonyan from Armenia.

Dynamic Euro-Tour Austria - Souquet finishes Petroni 9:0!

Last year�s winner Karl Boyes also defeated

In a very one sided match, �The Kaiser� Ralf Souquet (GER) executed Fabio Petroni (ITA) 9:0.

When the match was announced, everybody expected it to become a tough battle between the two players who are competing for many years on the Tour now. But it turned out to become a nightmare for Fabio Petroni. Here is what happened.

Petroni wins the lag and plays a good break shot with all balls spread wide open on the table. But he pockets the 2-ball with the 1-ball still being on the table! Foul. Souquet runs out and takes a 1:0 lead. �Amazingly, I saw him doing that for the third time since I know him�, Souquet stated after the match. �I thought he was only aiming for the 2-ball but he then fired it in�.

Then Souquet had a dry break. Petroni pocketed a ball and then had to play the next shot with the cue ball being frozen to an object ball. While both players were waiting for the referee, Petroni fouled while trying to aim over the object ball. Being the fair sportsman that he is, he directly admitted the foul, giving ball in hand to Souquet before referee Ted Meijer even had a chance to arrive at the table. Souquet ran out and took a 2:0 lead.

Then Petroni broke the balls and the cue ball was flying off the table, giving Souquet ball in hand again and an open table. 3:0 advance for Souquet. Can it get any worse for Petroni? Yes, it can! �That match really started as a nightmare for Fabio�, Souquet mentioned after the match. �And it did not get any better for him!�

Souquet breaks and pockets the 1-ball but does not really have a chance on the 2-ball. He tries to attack the situation and goes for a jump shot but he fouls. Petroni gets ball in hand. He pockets two balls and then misses an unbelievably easy 4-ball.

Souquet accepted the gift and turned the score to 4:0. �I saw no option for a good push-out so I went for the jump-shot�.

�But as it turned out I was lucky since he missed the 4-ball already�. �I think he already knew then that the match went against him�.

Petroni breaks, no ball down, Souquet runs out. New score: 5:0 for �the Kaiser�.

The next rack turned out to be a bit trickier. Petroni made two good pots but then the cue ball unluckily scratched after two contacts with other balls. However, Souquet made a bad shot for the first time, missing the 3-ball. Petroni runs the balls until he gets to the 8-ball which he does not get position for. After a few safety shots were exchanged, Souquet turned out to be in the better position since he played a marvelous resafe with a kick shot and after that fired the 8-ball over one rail into the side pocket. He also made the 9-ball, leading 6:0 now.

At that score, Petroni seemed to already have given up. But he tried to get back into the game and left a good safety shot for Souquet in the next rack. Souquet did not play it very well and gave Petroni a chance. Petroni ran all balls and missed an easy 9-ball!!! 7:0 for Souquet!

The next rack, Souquet ran out to be on the hill with a comfortable 8:0 lead.

Then Petroni broke, but one could tell that he has given up already. He just fired the balls around and again missed the 8-ball. Souquet pocketed the two last balls and whitewashed Petroni with 9:0.

Other notable results include last year�s winner and defending Champion Karl Boyes (GBR) losing relatively clear to Norway�s Mats Schjetne with 3:9. Newly crowned 10-ball World Champion Huidji See (NED) crushed Niklas Kaltenboek (AUT) 9:1. Darren Appleton (GBR) won 9:4 over Zivko Mihajlovski (MAC).

Konstantin Stepanov (RUS) slightly won over Dominic Jentsch (GER) with a margin of 9:8. Chinakhov (9:5 over Zajac), Koshovyi (9:6 over Laverge), Chamat (9:3 over Mortier) and Albin Ouschan (9:3 over Junior World Champion Sanchez-Ruiz) also all won their matches in the first winner�s round.

Dynamic Euro-Tour Austria - Sniegocki advances 9:6 over Shaw

First tough matchup ended in favour of the Polish player

Mateusz Sniegocki from Poland just defeated Scotsman Jayson Shaw 9:6.

With other famous players like Chris Melling and Imran Majid in the audience, Sniegocki wins the lag and starts the match with his first break. Both players left a very self-confident impression and at no time the spectator could get of the opinion that one of the two was about to get the match in his account for sure.

Last Euro-Tour finalist Shaw as well as Sniegocki performed on a very high level. No wonder that none of them was able to take a bigger lead than one game over the other for a long time.

With the break box and alternate break format being used in this 9-ball event, the score came to a 5:4 lead for Sniegocki when Shaw decided to take a timeout. When he came back, he broke the balls and the rack turned into a safety match. It was Jayson Shaw to play a bad safety and give Sniegocki the chance to take a two-rack lead over him for the first time in the match.

The Polish player did not let that chance slip away from him and ran the rack to take a 6:4 lead. The next rack unfolded almost equally with Shaw sitting on the better end now. In a safety battle, Sniegocki played a bad safe and Shaw ran the rack to close the gap a bit and turn the score to 5:6. At that point of the match one could get the impression that Shaw was not focused enough. He missed an easy shot and brought Sniegocki back to the table to take the rack and widen the gap to a 7:5 lead for him.

The next two racks saw dry breaks by both players with the opponent running the rack, bringing the match to an 8:6 lead for Sniegocki. In the 15th rack, after having used his timeout, Sniegocki broke the balls and again came up dry. Shaw went to the table and played a bad safety shot. That gave Sniegocki the chance to win the rack and the match with 9:6.

�I�m glad that I won this match�, said Sniegocki after the match, �since I was very nervous and not confident.� �Jayson is a very strong player who plays pretty fast and confident. Maybe the pockets are too tight here for him because when you play so fast, you are likely to make mistakes.� �If I should pick the moment when I won the match, I think it was in the 12th rack when Jayson missed the cushion shot so I could get a two rack lead over him�.

Other notable results include Vittorio de Falco (ITA) defeating Even Waernes (NOR) with 9:3, Nico Ottermann winning with 9:5 over Piotr Ostrowski (POL) and Jim Chawki (SWE) being victorious in his match over Sami Karttunen (FIN) with the same result.

The Euro-Tour event will be hosted by the European Governing Body for Pool, the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) and organized by International Billiard Promotion (IBP). For further information and reference please go to the event website www.eurotouronline.eu , follow us on twitter @EPBF_News or contact our press office.

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