Last weekend the billiards club BSF Kurpfalz hosted the 18th annual Center Court Classics. The event drew over 100 pool-players to Wiesloch, Germany. Among the players were such stars as Ralf Souquet, reigning world champion Thorsten Hohman, Christian Reimering, Andreas Roschlowky, Sascha Trautmann and many many more. Out of each of the four groups, which were played in the double elimination system, eight players made it to the final day. On the final day the 32 surviving players competed in a single elimination field. The biggest upset in the group stage was Thorsten Hohmann who suffered defeats from Kaplan and Trautmann and therefore did not qualify for the final day.
On Sunday most of the young guns suffered early defeats. In round one Philip Rüthemann was defeated by Ralph Souquet 5-9 and Florian Hammer was beaten by Andreas Roschkowsky. Christian Reimering did also not make it into the next round as he lost 5-9 to Michael Schmidt. In the round of the last 16 the last two players of the host club BSF Kurpfalz were sent to the bleachers. Christian Brehme was eliminated by Souquet and Holger Langlotz was left with no chance against Sascha Trautmann.
The quarter final saw the best match of the whole tournament. Roschkowsky won the lag for the break against Souquet and ran seven racks in a row. When Roschkowsky came up dry on the break in rack eight, Souquet made the game to close the score to 1-7. An unsuccessful break by former world champion Souquet led Roschkowsky back to the table which he would not leave again to win the match 9-1 with a perfect performance by both players. The other quarter final matches were Schmidt vs Trautmann 9-4, Kaplan vs. Bartsch 9-8 and Ottermann vs. Vettas 9-2 .
Both semi finals were thrilling matches. Roschkowsky and Kaplan entered the final with 9-7 and 9-8 wins against Schmitt and Ottermann. In the final the better break gave Kaplan the advantage he needed against Roschkowsky who lost 4-11. The win of this title is Kaplan's greatest career success so far.
1. Kaplan, Jörn
2. Roschkowsky, Andreas
3. Schmidt, Michael / Ottermann, Nicolas
5. Trautmann, Sascha / Souquet, Ralf / Bartsch, Andreas / Vettas, Vangelis
9. Langlotz, Holger / Brehme, Christian / Damm, Thomas / Belka, Jakob / Fritz, Thomas / Shaverdi, Farhad / Yassin, Mohamad / Westen, Marcus
16. Reimering, Christian / Vogel, Marco / Arnold, Roman / Lesiv, Armin / Hammer, Florian / Scholz, Alexander / Seeger, Michael / Steinlage, Martin / Wagenmann, Frank / Rüthemann, Philip / Buck, Markus / Jahnke, Bernd / Kiriakidis, Anastasios / Kanjana/ Oswald, Uwe / Jung, Benjamin
