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After a day of hard fought matches, the US Team ended the day exactly where they started it; one point ahead of Team Europe.
The afternoon matches featured more scotch doubles action and Europe took an early lead with wins in the first two matches. First off, the team of Mika Immonen and Marcus Chamat steamrolled the team of Charlie Williams and Tony Robles 5-0. The star of this match was Mika Immonen, who was celebrating his 32nd birthday. Immonen faded a couple mistakes from teammate Chamat and took full advantage of some botched safety attempts by Robles to propel his team to the win. The loss made it six straight matches that Williams has lost.
In the second match of the day, the team of Niels Feijen and Steve Davis rebounded from a 2-0 deficit to win five of the next six matches and earned a 5-3 win over Johnny Archer and Gabe Owen. For Archer and Owen, it appeared to be a mirror of their play the day before with Archer making uncharacteristic mistakes and Owen doing all he could to bail Archer out. In the end it was not enough to earn the win.
In the final doubles match of the day, Rodney Morris took control and calmed down his partner Earl Strickland to earn a 5-4 nailbiting win and tie the score at three matches each. The score in this match was tied at 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 and 4-4 before the American team broke and ran the final rack for the match win. Strickland looked ready to lose his cool in this one, but Morris defused the situation by joking with Strickland and taking his mind away from the situation.
In the evening matches, the format changed to singles and US Captain Archer put himself out in the first match where he took on Immonen. Immonen took an early lead and ran to a 5-3 win over Archer to give Team Europe the 4-3 lead.
Things were not looking good for Team USA when the next match saw Williams matched up against hometown hero Feijen. Williams was in the middle of a well publicized six match losing streak and Feijen had the entire room cheering for him. So, of course, Williams scored a dominating 5-1 win to knot the event at 4-4.
The final match of the day matched Steve Davis vs US Open Champion Gabe Owen. Owen, playing in his first Mosconi Cup, looked nervous but Davis also made some nervous errors to keep the match close. Things looked good for Owen as he took an early 2-0 lead, but the nerves took control them and Davis caught up at 2-2. The match was again tied at 3-3, before a scratch in mid rack by Owen allowed Davis to the hill at 4-3. Another mistake by Owen in the next rack almost gave the match to Davis, but Owen was able to salvage a safety out of the position and got the rack to get to hill-hill. Owen put his nerves to rest in the final game as he ran out to take Team USA back into the lead 5-4 at the end of play.
Play continues on Saturday with three doubles matches in the afternoon and three singles matches in the evening.
For up-to-the-minute results, check out the official site at www.mosconicup.com
