The new Champions Joshua Filler (left) and Sebastian Batkowski in their moment of glory
Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina: The new European Straight Pool Champions are Joshua Filler (GER) in the pupil's division and Sebastian Batkowski (POL) in the junior's division.
Filler started out nervous in his match with Krystian Cwikla (POL). Cwikla went ahead and took an early 31:4 lead. He played much calmer and seemed to be more focussed than Filler. But Filler never gave in. He stayed in the match and Cwikla committed some unforced errors. Filler brutally punished that by running 45 balls on Cwikla to turn the score 65:37 in his favor. That shocked Cwikla. He could not find his way back into the match and allowed Filler to take the points needed to win the match and the Championship title with 75:43.
In the junior's division, Batkowski found a tough match with Tobias Bongers (GER). The match was even for a long time. But then Batkowski ran 76 balls in two consecutive innings on Bongers, suddenly leading 76:50. Bongers hung in there and tried but it was not enough for the strong Pole. 100:85 was the result in the end in favor of Batkowski. Germany and Poland shared the medals and drew level in the medal table after the first of five events in the Youth Championships.
| Medal Table after 1 of 5 events | |||||
| Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | |
| 1 | Germany | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Poland | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| 3 | Russia | 1 | 1 | ||
| Norway | 1 | 1 | |||
The award ceremony for the straight pool competition will be held in conjunction with the award ceremony for 10-ball on Monday.
The event will continue tomorrow at 09:00 CET with the 10-ball competition.
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.billiardapps.com or contact our press office.
