Thursday, July 07, 2011: In a very one sided match, "The Kaiser" Ralf Souquet (GER) executed Fabio Petroni (ITA) with 9:0. When the match was announced, everybody expected it to become a tough battle between the two players who are competing for many years on the Tour now. But it turned out to become a nightmare for Fabio Petroni. Here is what happened.
Petroni wins the lag and plays a good break shot with all balls spread wide open on the table. But he pockets the 2-ball with the 1-ball still being on the table! Foul. Souquet runs out and takes a 1:0 lead. "Amazingly, I saw him doing that for the third time since I know him", Souquet stated after the match. "I thought he was only aiming for the 2- ball but he then fired it in".
Then Souquet had a dry break. Petroni pocketed a ball and then had to play the next shot with the cue ball being frozen to an object ball. While both players were waiting for the referee, Petroni fouled while trying to aim over the object ball. Being the fair sportsman that he is, he directly admitted the foul, giving ball in hand to Souquet before referee Ted Meijer even had a chance to arrive at the table. Souquet ran out and took a 2:0 lead.
Then Petroni broke the balls and the cue ball was flying off the table, giving Souquet ball in hand again and an open table. 3:0 advance for Souquet. Can it get any worse for Petroni? Yes, it can! "That match really started as a nightmare for Fabio", Souquet mentioned after the match. "And it did not get any better for him!"
Souquet breaks and pockets the 1-ball but does not really have a chance on the 2-ball. He tries to attack the situation and goes for a jump shot but he fouls. Petroni gets ball in hand. He pockets two balls and then misses an unbelievably easy 4-ball. Souquet accepted the gift and turned the score to 4:0. "I saw no option for a good push-out so I went for the jump-shot". "But as it turned out I was lucky since he missed the 4-ball already". "I think he already knew then that the match went against him".
Petroni breaks, no ball down, Souquet runs out. New score: 5:0 for "the Kaiser".
The next rack turned out to be a bit trickier. Petroni made two good pots but then the cue ball unluckily scratched after two contacts with other balls. However, Souquet made a bad shot for the first time, missing the 3-ball. Petroni runs the balls until he gets to the 8-ball which he does not get position for. After a few safety shots were exchanged, Souquet turned out to be in the better position since he played a marvellous resafe with a kick shot and after that fired the 8-ball over one rail into the side pocket. He also made the 9-ball, leading 6:0 now.
At that score, Petroni seemed to already have given up. But he tried to get back into the game and left a good safety shot for Souquet in the next rack. Souquet did not play it very well and gave Petroni a chance. Petroni ran all balls and missed an easy 9-ball!!! 7:0 for Souquet! The next rack, Souquet ran out to be on the hill with a comfortable 8:0 lead. Then Petroni broke, but one could tell that he has given up already. He just fired the balls around and again missed the 8-ball. Souquet pocketed the two last balls and whitewashed Petroni with 9:0.
Other notable results include last year's winner and defending Champion Karl Boyes (GBR) losing relatively clear to Norway's Mats Schjetne with 3:9. Newly crowned 10-ball World Champion Huidji See (NED) crushed Niklas Kaltenboek (AUT) 9:1. Darren Appleton (GBR) won 9:4 over Zivko Mihajlovski (MAC). Konstantin Stepanov (RUS) slightly won over Dominic Jentsch (GER) with a margin of 9:8. Chinakhov (9:5 over Zajac), Koshovyi (9:6 over Laverge), Chamat (9:3 over Mortier) and Albin Ouschan (9:3 over Junior World Champion Sanchez-Ruiz) also all won their matches in the first winner's round.
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