Andreas Madsen (left) and Alen Muratovic lagging for the break
Sarajevo, Bosnia & Hercegovina: The start of the team competition brought two nice victories to the host nation Bosnia & Hercegovina.
The junior's team had to deal with team Denmark. Normally, a team consists of three players and 8-ball, 9-ball and straight pool are played. If a team does only consist of two players, one match is an automatic win for the other team. The team that wins two matches first wins the team encounter. In this case, Denmark only had two players so the Bosnian juniors were automatically leading 1:0. Azur Ibric (BIH) was playing Joel Rosenfeldt (DEN) in 8-ball while Alen Muratovic (BIH) took on Andreas Madsen (DEN) in 9-ball. Both matches were quite close and the Danish "Dynamites" did have their chances. But in the end, team Bosnia prevailed. Muratovic won 8:6 while Ibric took his match 7:6. That constituted the Bosnian 3:0 win over Denmark in the junior's.
The pupils had some tougher time to earn their merits. Bosnia & Hercegovina met Czech Republic with Arman Serifovic (BIH) playing 8-ball against Josef Nechvile (CZE), Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) playing Tomas Zajicek (CZE) in 9-ball and Nemania Micic (BIH) contending against Bohdan Ivanets (CZE) in straight pool. As so often in team competition, it turned out that the straight pool match would be the decider. This is due to the nature of straight pool; it normally takes longer than short rack games. This is what happened here. Nechvile took the 8-ball with 6:2 while Pehlivanovic put the match all square, defeating Zajicek 7:2. Micic was struggling in straight pool and it looked like Ivanets would be able to snatch the match for the Czech Republic. Trailing 64:67, young Micic took all his courage and fired in some amazing shots, winning the straight pool 75:67. That brought the second victory of the day home to Bosnia.
Other notable results in the junior's division include team Austria powering past team Portugal with 3:0.
In the pupil's division, the Austrian youngsters sneaked past team Bulgaria with 2:1. A strong team Russia expectedly wasted no time with team Turkish North Cyprus, trouncing them 2:0. Team Belgium which contained the two Khodjaeva sisters got the better of team Norway, winning 2:0. That was a pure Khodjaeva family production with Kevin Makelberge being the only rooster in the yard. Tonight, the team competition will continue. You can join the action via LiveStream of all 20 tables at
www.kozoom.com/en/pool-billiard/
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.
