Nick Van Den Berg
The European pool championships kicked off here in Treviso Italy today with the straightpool discipline and we’ve had plenty of high runs to satisfy the crowds. A match that got everyone talking about was reigning men’s champion, Niels Feijen up against his old adversary, Nick Van Den Berg (pictured) in the winner’s qualifier. Arguably the best two players of this discipline over the past 17 years, winning a staggering 10 gold medals between them during this period, it was a match to savour.
Nick won the lag and sent Niels in to make the opening shot, this turned out to be his only shot of the match as Nick rolled back the years with a superb century break that sent Niels to the loser’s side with a score 100-0. While Nick could take a short rest, Niels found another Dutchman in Ivar Saris who wanted the champs scalp and duly took it with an emphatic win 100-65. Niels tried everything to stay in the match, including twice taking a deliberate minus 15 penalty while Ivar Saris was hovering high in the nineties, it was not to be though and Ivar joins Nick in the single elimination while the ex-champ has time to reflect before his quest of the 10-ball starts.
Finland’s Casper Matikainen also found his potting rhythm in the 1stround with some great shooting to defeat the experienced Serbian, Zoran Svilar 100-0. This may have got the better of the youngster as he came up short in his next match losing to Denmark’s Christopher Lentz. This sent Casper into the loser’s side of the draw where he won his next two matches and scraped into the single elimination starting Sunday.
Austria’s Max Lechner was looking to emulate these high runs and made it to 99 before a bad position meant he had to wait for the next visit to finish the match 100-0 against Slovenia’s Mitja Gradisnik. Another Gradisnik was sent to the loser’s side as Klemen Gradisnik lost out to Sweden’s Christian Sparrenloev-Fischer 100-8 with Christian running the final 77 to clinch a spot in the single elimination. Klemen eventually made it to the last 32 single elimination with a last gasp victory over Italy’s Tonini Gianmarco 100-92.
It was not all bad news for the Gradisnik family as over in the women’s division, Ana Gradisnik saw off last year’s bronze medallist, Switzerland’s Christine Feldmann with a comfortable score line 75-8 and then followed that with a tighter victory over the Netherlands Elise Qui 75-55 to book her spot in Sundays single elimination of 16 players.
Reigning women’s champion, Austria’s Jasmin Ouschan came through the preliminary rounds unscathed. First beating Russia’s Natalia Seroshtan 75-35 and then the Netherlands Tamara Peeters-Rademakers 75-32 which puts Jasmin into the single elimination slot as well.
Last year’s silver medallist, Russia’s Kristina Tkach has also booked her spot into the last 16 by beating Ukraine’s Viktoria Nagorna 75-26 and then Germany’s Tina Vogelmann 75-31 and will be back at the table on Sunday 11am local time.
Draw and results can be found at www.epbf.com with all matches streamed live via our media partners, www.kozoom.com
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.epconline.eu or visit us on Facebook for regular news clips or contact our press office press@epbf.com.
