WITH TWO EVENTS having taken place on the European Mosconi Cup ranking, Europe’s all-time appearance record holder Ralf Souquet is once again in the box seat as he heads up the World and European rankings as qualification gets underway in earnest.
‘The Kaiser’ has made a total of 16 Mosconi Cup appearances from 1994 up to 2013 and an appearance in Las Vegas in December will put him in the Guinness Book of Records alongside America’s Johnny Archer on 17 Cups, assuming that the Scorpion fails to make the US team this year.
Souquet was a runner-up to Niels Feijen at the Level Three Bucharest Open in February and then went on to win on the Euro Tour later that month to put him on 72 points.
In second place on is Russia’s Ruslan Chinakhov on 54, who is having a break out year, having won the opening World Pool Series event in New York in January and then followed that up with the gold medal in 9 ball at the European Championships in Portugal.
2017 European Mosconi Cup Rankings - Combined and European List
Ralf Souquet (GER) 72
Ruslan Chinakhov (RUS) 54
Niels Feijen (NED) 43
Nick van den Berg (NED) 40
Daryl Peach (GBR) 30
Dennis Grabe (EST) 30
Mario He (AUT) 23
Albin Ouschan (AUT) 23
Damianos Giallourakis (GRE) 23
Imran Majid (GBR) 21
Konrad Juszczyszyn (POL) 21
Unlike previous years there will be only two rankings instead of three. The first will be the ‘European Ranking’ which includes the five European ‘A’ and five European ‘B’ events. The winner of this ranking will gain a spot on the Mosconi Cup side.
The second ranking will be the ‘World Ranking’ which will comprise all 12 events. The first and second placed players in this ranking will gain spots on the European Mosconi Cup team.
In the event that the winner of the European Ranking also comes first or second in the World Ranking, then the player filling the third position in the World Ranking will gain an automatic spot. The remaining two players will be wildcard picks.
The next ranking event is the Portuguese Open which starts on Thursday March 30th.
Points Cut Off
Events with a field upwards of 80 players – top 32
Events with fields between 64 and 79 players – top 24
Events with less than 64 entries – top 16.
2017 MOSCONI CUP is sponsored by Rasson Billiards who supplies the Official Table; the cloth is supplied by Iwan Simonis and the Official Balls are Super Aramith by Saluc. Predator is the Official Cue of the event and Ultimate Team Gear provide all Mosconi Cup apparel.
