David Alcaide had a great tournament in Italy at the Dynamic Italian Open stop of the EPBF tour. Surmounting a very tough road to the finals he wasted little time once there and was able to keep enough opportunities away from Ralf Souquet to continue his great run and win the 5,000 Euro first prize money by the score of 9-5!
Alcaide deserved the win simply due to the list of champions he had to beat to earn the right to face Souquet. In the round of 32, Alcaide and Souquet both handled their adversaries easily. Alcaide beat Christoffer Magnusson of Finland 9-3 while Souquet brushed off Carlo Dalmatin of Monaco 9-2.
These victories propelled the two finalists into the round of 16 in this single-elimination bracket. Here is where Alcaide made a huge statement. While Souquet won a match that he was favored in by besting an always-game Stephen Cohan of France 9-4, Alcaide was faced off against one of the toughest players on the planet, Niels Feijen. The railbirds might have expected Alcaide to struggle against Feijen but the opposite turned out to be the truth. Feijen could not handle the power of Alcaide and fell out of the tournament in an ugly 9-3 manner.
This brought us to the quarter-finals. Souquet had another very respectable opponent in the form of Swiss great Dimitri Jungo. But he played his normally stoic pool and sent Jungo home 9-6. Meanwhile, Alcaide had to play the very seasoned and spirited cue of Marcus Chamat. No one will ever blame anyone for losing to Chamat. But Alcaide stepped up one more time and dominated the match to win and progress 9-5.
The semi-finals were perhaps a bit anticlimactic. David Alcaide took down the last standing Englishman 9-2 when he destroyed Craig Osborne. Souquet allowed a bit more drama in his match as he slid past his countryman Marko Vogel 9-7. And that set up the final stage as Souquet would try to win his third Eurotour event in six months. Alcaide had different plans and he simply stunned the great German champion by grabbing a lead he would not surrender and marching out to grab the biggest plate of pasta 9-5.
RESULTS:
1) David Alcaide 5,000 Euro
2) Ralf Souquet 3,300 Euro
3-4) Craig Osborne, Marko Vogel 2,000 Euro
5-8) Marcus Chamat, Dimitri Jungo, Pedro Fonseca, Mateusz Sniegocki 1,480 Euro
9-16) Niels Feijen, Nicolas Otterman, Jurgen Jinisy, Tony Drago, Daryl Peach, Matjaz Erculj, Mark Gray, Stephan Cohen 1,000 Euro
17-32) Chris Melling, Christoffer Magnusson, Oliver Ortmann, Michal Kedzlor, Vincent Facquet, Nikos Ekonomopoulos, Darren Appleton, Benjamin Hamburger, Thomas Seiffert, Nick Van Den Berg, Radoslaw Babica, Artem Koshovyl, Nuno Santos, Huijdi See, Mariusz Skoneczny, Carlo Dalmatin 764 Euro
