THE THIRD EVENT of the Dynamic Billard Euro Tour takes place this weekend in the beautiful Austrian mountain town of St Johann in Pongau as 252 players from across Europe convene to do battle. The tournament is lengthened to four days and concludes on Monday 27th June with the final stages broadcast live to ten countries across Europe. For all other territories, play is available throughout via Kozoom.tv
Fresh from their epic success at the recent World Cup of Pool, the Spanish pair of Francisco Sanchez Ruiz (European ranked #1) and David Alcaide (#6) will be looking to consolidate their positions although as ever they will need to come with their best to reach the closing stages.
Challenging Sanchez Ruiz for the top spot is Poland’s Wiktor Zielinski who is 120 points behind, and Joshua Filler, a further 75 points back. In fact, the top three players have between them won the last six Euro Tour tournaments, which is an incredible achievement, given the strength of the competing fields.
Commented Filler, “It doesn’t matter where or when, I’m always ready to play because I love the sport, I love the game and I’m passionate.”
Filler, along with Zielinski and Sanchez Ruiz are creating a gap at the top of the Euro Tour rankings having dominated the tour for the past 12 months.
Continued Filler, “They’re always there and always playing consistent and always performing in international events. Francisco won at Derby City, he was with me in the final of the UK Open and he’s always there. Wiktor too. He was in the Predator final and they’re always my biggest rivals but it doesn’t matter really as when you play them you need the luck on your side to beat them.
“And then, obviously you have Kazakis and all the other guys like Alcaide who is hard to beat so it’s going to be interesting this week! When you look back on my results in St Johann, I was finishing first, second, second, third, third here in this venue so it’s my favourite Euro Tour to be honest.”
Whilst the ‘big three’ have owned the Euro Tour this past year, there are plenty of other players in with a realistic chance this week. Winning a Euro Tour stop is never easy and play commences at 9.00am local time on Friday morning.
As well as the prize money, there are Tour ranking points on offer as well as world ranking points, so there is everything to play for. All Euro Tour tournaments are 9-ball and players compete in a double-elimination format, playing down to the last 32 competitors, and then single elimination until the finish. All matches are races to 9
racks with alternate break.
All the matches can be viewed live at www.kozoom.com
Results, live scoring and draw are available at www.epbf.com