After an exciting thriller, Polish juniors made it to the semis
Friday, 05 August 2011: Team Poland defeated Team Sweden in the loser's qualification round of the juniors division with 2:1.
9-ball was decided rather quickly. Tian Zhang (SWE) lost clearly to Konrad Piekarski (POL) with 2:8. He had no chance against the Polish who simply played too strong for him. In the 8-ball match, Marek Kudlik (POL) had to give in to Daniel Tangudd (SWE) with 6:7. Tangudd shot a very tough 8-ball in the final rack, tying the team match at 1:1. The straight pool had to decide. Here, two well-known faces played against each other. Jim Chawki (SWE) was already leading with 87:49 over Wojciech Szewczyk (POL), when he ran out of position with the cue ball. Some safeties were exchanged and Szewczyk got back to the table, being the first player to be able to pocket a ball. He did and ran 41 balls before he also ran out of position. The score was now 88:85 for Szewczyk. The next 30 minutes, safety shots were exchanged back and forth with again Szewczyk being the player to get the first chance of pocketing a ball. He ran 10 balls and missed the next shot, leading 98:85 now in a race to 100. Chawki unexpectedly got back to the table but missed his second shot, leaving two object balls on the table for the Polish player. Szewczyk ran the two balls and won the match 100:86. This brought Team Poland the victory. They will now face the Dutch team in the semi-final while the German Team takes it on with team Hungary.
In the pupils division, the semi-finals will be played between Poland v Russia and Germany v Finland. The team semi-finals will commence Saturday after the 9-ball finals have been played.
The European Championships are 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.epbf.com , follow us on twitter @EPBF_News or contact our press office.
Team Poland (l.t.r.): Szewczyk, Piekarski, Kudlik
Foto: EPBF/DK
