Five rounds of 8-ball, then 10-ball quarter finals today
Tuesday, 02 August 2011: Today is one of those days that start off with one discipline and switch to another one in the evening. From 09:00 until 17:00 local time, 8-ball will be played. Then, the 10-ball competition will be decided in the remaining three rounds of the day with the finals to be played at 20:00.
In the juniors division of the Dynamic European Youth Championships, after having a walk over in the first round, defending Champion Jim Chawki (SWE) won his opening match over his teammate Alejandro Dinamarca with 7:2. Dinamarca was simply overchallenged with the fine play of Chawki. The Swede will have to deal with Austrian top player Mario He in the winner's qualification round.
As a curiosity, we had another defending Champion in the juniors division. Wojciech Szewczyk (POL) is the defending Champion in the pupils 8-ball. He cannot play in that division since he reached the age limit this year. Being new to the juniors division, Szewczyk also won his first two matches over Julian Kortüm (GER) with 7:4 and Vladislav Zaborovskii (RUS) with 7:5. He will now face his teammate Konrad Piekarski for a spot in the single elimination last 16.
Manuel Ederer (GER), last year's runner-up in 8-ball, does not seem to have found his rhythm yet. After having played a tournament far below his possibilities so far, he lost in the 1st winner's round to Jakub Koniar (SVK) with 5:7. Ederer will go into the round of hopes and try to get a seat in the final 16 single elimination chart.
In the pupils division, David Maslov (RUS) was the only seeded player since the others are either not here or have advanced to the juniors division. Maslov had a walk over in the first round and then faced Aapo Virrankoski (FIN) in the next round. The performance of the Finish youngster was completely equal to the one from Maslov. In fact, it was Virrankoski to be on the hill first, leading 5:4. But then Maslov proved to be the more experienced player and changed the tack. He won two racks in a row, sending Virrankoski to the loser's side with a 6:5 victory.
In the girls division, defending Champion Simone Künzl (GER) was not playing since she has reached the age limit. All other three top players from last year were in the field though. Nr. 1 seeded Monika Zabek (POL) slated her performance in her first match. After having received a walk over in round 1, Zabek got crushed by Miriam Steiner (GER) with 1:5. She will now have to try and make it through the loser's side of the chart. The other seeded girls won their first matches. Veronika Ivanovskaia (GER) won over teammate Linda Vetten with 5:4 while Kamila Khodjaeva (BEL) handed Ana Gradisnik (SLO) a classical doughnut, beating her 5:0,!
The 8-ball competition will commence tomorrow morning at 09:00 local time.
The European Championships are 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 federation website www.epbf.com , follow us on twitter @EPBF_News or contact our press office.
