Mario He (left) and Mohammed Soufi
The last remaining Austrian at the Dynamic Billard Klagenfurt Open 2018 is Mario He. He took down Jani Uski (FIN) in the round of the final 32 players with 9:4 and will now face Alexander Kazakis (GRE) in his next match tomorrow morning.
The tournament did not provide a smooth start for Mario He. He lost his opening match yesterday to unheralded Filippo Cataldi (ITA). Since then, he fought his way through the loser’s side and finally booked himself a spot among the last 32 players by winning 9:7 in the loser’s qualification round. His opponent there was - Filippo Cataldi again! Probably a good revenge for Mario He that was. In the next round against Uski, Mario He did not have as many problems as he seemed to have against the Italian and took down Uski easily with 9:4.
Another remarkable achievement so far was done by Mohammed Soufi (SYR). The Syrian currently living in Germany has played some good matches this year already on the Euro-Tour so his opponents could have been on alert. Soufi lost his second match to Marc Bijsterbosch (NED) with 5:9 and then struggled through the loser’s side, taking out David Plattner (SUI) 9:7, Raoul Reichegger (AUT) 9:7 and Miguel Silva (POR) 9:6. In the round of the last 32 players, Soufi encountered „The Maharaja“ Imran Majid (GBR). The match was filled with action and excitement and went over the full distance. At 8:8, Soufi had the break shot and outplayed Majid, making it into the round of the last 16 players tomorrow.
Earlier today, an exciting encounter took place between #1 ranked player Eklent Kaci (ALB) and Joshua Filler (GER) who seems to be on fire throughout the whole year. The story of the first four racks is quickly told: both players committed no mistakes, always had a ball on the break and ran their respective racks so the score was 2:2 after four racks into the match. In rack 5, Filler scratched while breaking and Kaci got ball in hand. Completely unexpected Kaci missed an easy shot on the 5-ball and gave that rack back to Filler. That was an untypical error for Kaci and it was not the last one. In the next rack, Kaci played a good safety shot for the 1-ball and forced Filler to commit a foul which the German did. Then, Kaci again was not able to run the rack. He ran out of position for the 6-ball with only 3 balls left on the table. A safety exchange started with Kaci to be the player in the end who had a clear shot on the 6-ball. Kaci pocketed it and then missed an easy 7-ball with only the 7-ball and the 9-ball left on the table. These kind of errors are completely uncharacteristic for the young Albanian #1 ranked player in Europe. However, Kaci seemed not to be able to find his rhythm against Filler today. Even when Filler himself missed an easy 5-ball leading 7:2, Kaci was not really able to capitalise from the mistake of his opponent. In then end, Filler rightfully took the match with 9:3 and sent Kaci to the loser’s side where Niels Feijen (NED) eliminated Kaci with 9:7.
Friday through Sunday, EPBF will show two feature matches LIVE on the EPBF Facebook page. The complete tournament on 20 tables is shown on kozoom.com for premium pass holders.
Tomorrow, the Dynamic Billard Klagenfurt Open 2018 will continue at 10:00 with matches from the last 16 players single elimination. At 09:00 CET, the women will begin their tournament.
The event is hosted by the European Governing Body for Pool, the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) and organised by International Billiard Promotion (IBP). Play starts Thursday at 09:30 local time, for further information and reference please go to the federation website eurotouronline under the Eurotour tab. You can also visit us on our Facebook page or check out the EPBF YouTube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office press@epbf.com.
