The Longoni 9 Ball League, a brand-new scotch doubles tournament, continues in Sankt Johann Im Pongau, Austria with the final group matches. Playing out on the 23rd June at 20:30h, the evening will feature matches between Norway & Bosnia Herzegovina and Poland v Italy, followed at 21:30h by Spain v Albania and finally Serbia v Germany.
The top-ranked athletes from the current EPBF EuroTour standings compete in a team scotch doubles format. 12 teams compete in four groups of three teams, with the group winners progressing to the final stage and the team finishing bottom, relegated from next year’s competition.
With the EuroTour rankings determining the teams, Germany’s Tobias Bongers moves ahead of Thorsten Hohmann, after his 5th place finish in Italy, and will partner Joshua Filler in their match with Serbia. Having beaten Estonia in the first round, the German duo will seal a semi-final berth with a victory over Serbia’s Aleksa Pecelj and Andreas Klasovic.
Francesco Candela remains the top Italian on the EuroTour rankings and he will again be partnered by Fabio Petroni who just bettered Daniele Corrieri with a 33rd place finish in Italy. Petroni sits just one place and 15 points above Corriere in 37th place on the overall ranking. The Italians have a tough match they need to win against Poland’s hot properties, Wiktor Zielinski and Wojciech Szewczyk, who eased past Austria in the opening round 7-3.
Group overview｜©EPBF
With the group winners advancing to the semi-finals, it’s all to play for and a few groups could end with a tiebreak if the results go that way. For this to happen in their respective groups, Albania would need to beat Spain, Serbia beat Germany and Italy conquer Poland. This scenario would force a tiebreak in their respective groups.
That would see all three teams in the group go head-to-head at the next EuroTour stop in Bulgaria in August in a race to 7 racks with both advancement and relegation determined.
Greece are the only team already relegated from next year’s Longoni 9 Ball League having lost their opening two matches. This leaves Bosnia & Herzegovina and Norway in a straight shoot-out for a place in the semi-finals which take place on Friday 30th September in Slovenia.
The Longoni 9 Ball League, promoted by the Longoni Group is a team event consisting of the two highest EuroTour ranked athletes from 12 nations competing in a scotch doubles group format. Matches can be viewed live on the free Kozoom platform, TV.kozoom as well as on the Longoni 9 Ball League & EPBF Facebook pages.