At the Dynamic Billard European Championships for U23 at the Golden Tulip Jagershorst Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands, the 9-ball individuals have started. The tournament holds 26 players from 14 nations. The event was played down to the winner’s qualification round today with 4 of the „usual suspects“ reaching a spot in the quarter-finals already.
First and foremost, the main favourite is of course Joshua Filler GER). Having won the title in 8-ball yesterday and several tournaments already this year including the China Open, Filler dealt with Roberto Bartol (CRO) 9:6 and then Tianfang Zhang (SWE) 9:3 even. He must be considered the main favourite for the title also in 9-ball.
Another known player who was expected to get far in the event was Tim De Ruyter (NED). The Dutch took down Rytis Kavalaukas (LIT) 9:6 and then Yasin Kartal (TUR) 9:4 today for his ticket to the quarterfinals.
Left to right: Filler, Labutis, De Ruyter and Georgiev
A player with quite some experience is Pijus Labutis (LIT). Today, he fought his way over Americo Francisco (POR) 9:4, Dylan Vyvey (BEL) 9:2 and then Samuel Santos (POR) in a hill-hill thriller 9:8. With those victories, Labutis joins Filler and De Ruyter in the quarter-finals.
Completing the seeded players for the quarter-finals is Georgi Gergiev (BUL). The Bulgarian won his matches over Daniel Resch (AUT) 9:5, then took down Aliaksandr Hapeyeu (BLR) 6:9 and finally succeeded against Lukas Andersson (SWE) with 9:5.
The opponents for the four seeded players who made their way through the winner’s round will be determined tomorrow morning at 10:00 with the loser’s qualification round matches.
Tomorrow, the Dynamic Billard European Championships for U23 at the Golden Tulip Jagershorst Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands will continue at 10:00 CET with loser’s qualification round matches of the 9-ball competition.
Every day, one match from the events will be shown LIVE on the Facebook page of the EPBF. All Facebook users may check out the high standard of quality which is provided for all the events and see what the Kozoom members receive all the time. You can see all the matches live via www.kozoom.com who stream the whole event on 23 tables on the internet LIVE. The FB live matches are announced on the EPBF Facebook page around noon every day. Results and schedules can be found at www.europeanpoolchampionships.
The event is hosted by the European Governing Body for Pool, the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) and organised by International Billiard Promotion (IBP). For further information and reference please go to the federation website www.europeanpoolchampionships.