Defending Champion Mario He unable to defend his title
Portoroz, Slovenia: In every sport it is great to see that the young generation is successful. One of the downsides though is that they need to finish their school at times. This is exactly what happened to Mario He (AUT) this year. He is working on his exam in school so he is unable to take up his mission for defending his title.
But there are still many others that are longing for it. One of them is Dominic Jentsch (GER). He just defeated 10-ball finalist Konstantin Stepanov (RUS) with 8:6. Jentsch got going a bit quicker than Stepanov. He took a 6:2 lead over Stepanov who seemed to be not quite as strong as he was yesterday during the final rounds in 10- ball. Maybe that took too much out of him. "In the beginning of the match, I just did not know what to do. I played much worse than yesterday and I will have to improve a lot", stated Stepanov after the match.
However, after a 7:3 lead from Jentsch, Stepanov managed to close the gap a bit and turned the score to 7:5. Then, Jentsch missed an easy shot which even brought Stepanov within one rack to Jentsch. But in the 14th rack, Stepanov missed an important shot and allowed Jentsch to take the rack and the victory with 8:6.
Other notable results include Nikos Ekonomopoulos (GRE) prevailing over Oliver Ortmann (GER) with 8:2. Daryl Peach (GBR) finished Radko Majercik (CZE) with 8:0 in 27 minutes! Andreas Roschkowsky (GER) came out on top of Nick Malai (ALB) with 8:5.
The women's and the wheelchair division will start at 13:00 CET including the defending Champions Nataliya Seroshtan (RUS) and Jouni Tahti (FIN).
The event is 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.epconline.eu or contact our press office.
