The day started with the first matches of the team competition. An interesting match took place in the Under 19’s between Team Russia and Team Poland. Both nations are known for their high quality youth contingency and the match turned out to become a tough struggle. Michael Muklewicz took the first point for the Polish team, winning the 8-ball match with 7:3 over Marsel Safiullin. But Maksim Dudanets managed to strike back for the Russians, winning the straight pool match over Krystian Cwikla with 100:52. So the decider had to come from the 9-ball match between Sergey Lutsker (RUS) and Konrad Kleinsmit (POL). That match started all leveled and after 10 racks played, the scoreboard displayed a 5:5 tie in a race to 8. But then Kleinsmit got momentum. He won three consecutive racks to win the 9-ball with 8:5 and take team Poland to the round of the last 8 teams while the Russians need to take the detour over the loser’s round. Team Poland will be joined by defending Champion Ger many, Switzerland and Austria, last year’s runner-up.
After two rounds, the tournament switched back to 10-ball individuals. It can be stated here that though several surprises occurred, the „usual suspects“ have mainly made their way through to the semi-finals. Belonging to the few casualties who lost unexpectedly today is Daniel Maciol (POL). He lost in the round of the last 32 players against unheralded Gard Eiken Flage (NOR) with 5:6. Flage’s journey ended in the next round when he fell to the sharp blade of Wiktor Zielinski (POL) 2:6. Jan Van Lierop (NED) also lost quite unexpectedly with 5:6 against Kevin Schiller (GER). Schiller went on and took down Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) in the next round with another hill-hill thriller 6:5. That booked him a seat in the semi-final and he is guaranteed a medal in his first European Championship attendance ever.
The semi-finals in 10-ball are as follows:
Girl’s division:
Jana Peters (GER) v Diana Khodjaeva (BEL)
Kristina Tkach (RUS) v Marharyta Fefilava (BLR)
Under 17’s:
Kamil Szasor (POL) v Kevin Schiller (GER)
Eklent Kaci (ALB) v Fedor Gorst (RUS)
Under 19’s:
Vitaliy Patsura (UKR) v Casper Matikainen (FIN)
Maksim Dudanets (RUS) v Sergey Lutsker (RUS)
The tournament will continue tomorrow at 09:00 local time with the first round of the 8-ball competition. At 17:00, the semi-finals of the 10-ball individuals will be played, followed by the finals straight after.
All matches can be viewed LIVE at www.kozoom.com. Up to 24 tables in HiRes quality are providing you with all the action of the event. You do not miss out one single match! Join today!
More information about participants, schedules, achievements, rankings, etc can be found on the event website www.epconline.eu.
The event will is hosted by the European Pocket Billiard Federation EPBF and organized by International Billiard Promotion Foundation IBPF.
