Aleksa Pecelj has won the Longoni Visoko Open in Bosnia & Herzegovina for a first World Nineball Tour title beating Croatia’s Ante Šola in the final 9-3 to move to world number 23 and into the Mosconi Cup reckoning at number six ahead of the 2023 European Open Pool Championship getting underway today, Tuesday, 8 August.
Pecelj headed to Visoko off the back of a solid start to year so far and the Serbian continued that form to defeat Mustafa Alnar twice including in the semi-finals, Ana Gradisnik, and Vanja Kovacevic to lift the title.
The previous winner in Visoko, Niels Feijen travelled looking for a second title in as many tournaments. Still, it was Alnar that ended the world number 15’s hopes of going back to back in the Last 16 while JS Junior Open winner Maks Benko lost out to Roberto Bartol in a hill-hill finish at the same stage.
World Pool Championship finalist Mohammad Soufi saw his run ended by Šola in the quarter-finals comprehensively 9-1 while previous finalist Sanjin Pehlivanovic fell at the semi-finals to Šola on his run to a maiden final.
Spasian Spasov and Vanja Kovacevic both registered their best finishes in a World Nineball Tour event by reaching the quarter-finals as over 20 nationalities took centre stage over the weekend event.
Pehlivanovic‘s run sees him leapfrog Spanish Open Pool Championship champion Dang Jin Hu, Mieszko Fortunski and Denis Grabe to become the new world number 24. Feijen remains at number 15 with Soufi number 16.