THE 2022 PREDATOR World Junior Youth Championships played down to the semi-finalists in all divisions today in San Juan and the European representation enjoyed a terrific day’s play. Taking place at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan, the World Juniors features three divisions – Boys Under 19s and Under 17s and Girls Under19s – and Europeans filled 14 of the 24 quarter spots.
The first division to complete today was the Girls and there is just one European left standing as defending champion Lena Primus battled her way through to the final four, defeating the Netherlands Jolien Schuurman 9-6 in the quarters.
Dominica Pawelczyk (Poland) suffered a heart-break 9-8 loss to America’s Bethany Tate, while Alara Ghaffari, the young Turkish North Cypriot, succumbed to Hyerim Kim (Korea), a beaten finalist in this event last year. Primus and Kim will face each other tomorrow (Monday) in the semi-finals with the winner meeting either Tate or Xin You Hong (Chinese Taipei) in the title match.
Lina Primus (AUT)｜©Pro Billiard Series
In the Boys Under 17 event, Europeans occupied six of the eight quarter final berths which became three semi-final spots after some gruelling battles. Karl Gnadeberg held his nerve to defeat Felix Vogel in a match that went down to the decider. Vogel (Germany) had trailed throughout but battled to back to get the match to 8-8. The Estonian though seized his chance, having missed a 9-ball for the match when leading 8-6.
An all-Finnish clash saw Jori Narvola defeat Riku Romppanen 9-6 to get among the medals. Narvola was relegated to the one-loss side after a second-round defeat and now finds himself up against Li Lang Yi (Hong Kong) for a place in the final. Serbia’s rampaging Lazar Kostic is also one away from the final as he beat Payne McBride (USA) by 9-5. Kostic will be up against Narvola in the semi-finals. Finally, Dutchman, Mika Van Berkel fell to the aforementioned Li by 9-5.
Karl Gnadeberg (EST)｜©Pro Billiard Series
Poland’s Szymon Kural was the first of the European players to make it through to the last four in the Under 19 division as he coasted past highly-fancied Saudi player Khalid Alghamdi. 11-4 was the scoreline and Kural will now be highly confident going into the final day. Dennis Laszkowski (Germany) also enjoyed a comfortable win, defeating Filipino Keane Rota by 11-3. Yuma Dorner (Germany) made it three into the last four for Europe with an 11-4 victory against American Joey Tate. The only disappointment was Yannick Pongers’ narrow 11-10 loss to Sun Yi Hsuan of Chinese Taipei.
Yuma Dörner (GER)｜©Pro Billiard Series
Team Leader of the EPBF contingent, Tommi Lamminaho, could look back at a satisfying day’s play from his charges, “Obviously to fill seven of the 12 semi-final positions with our European athletes is an amazing achievement and a real testimony to the skill and determination of our young players. It could have been more but a couple suffered hill-hill defeats but I know they will bounce back stronger from the experience.
“Monday is the final day so we’re looking at one last big push as the destination of the medals is determined. Having started out strongly on Friday, I couldn’t be prouder of what we have achieved so far, but we’re all very optimistic for the last day here,” he added.
Tommi Lamminaho, The team Leader of the EPBF, ｜©EPBF (file)
Monday’s schedule sees the Girls semi-finals get underway at 10am local time, with the final following at 14.00. The Under 17s semis are at midday with the title match at 17.00 and the Under19s get underway at 14.00 with final taking place at 19.00.
The WPA Predator World Junior Championships are part of a series of top-level tournaments being staged at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan through November, culminating in the Predator WPA World 8-Ball Championships.
Further event details including live scoring can be found at the tournament’s Official Site: https://probilliardseries.com/
Once underway, matches can be viewed at www.kozoom.com