Abled meets disabled, young meets old, the Eurotour has always thrown up some interesting scenarios since its inception in 1992 and the Dynamic Billard Lasko open was no different. Slovenia’s David Slacek has played the last two wheelchair European championships and introduced the EPBF to this lovely location. It was therefore heart-warming that he displayed such courage to take on the abled bodied and he did not let the Locals down beating Bulgaria’s top women player Kristina Zlateva 9-4 in today’s early round. Unfortunately, Davids run came to an end when he lost his next two matches to Greece’s Nik Ekonopolous 9-1 and Russia’s Aleksander Chernyshov 9-5.
David Slacek (SLO)｜hoto © EPBF
Then came the young, Maks Benko, the 11 year old Slovenian was full of emotion as he took down veteran Dutchman Peter Knuever in a thrilling 9-8 match watched by his coach Mitja Gradisnik. Mitja was instrumental in bringing the European Youth championships to Slovenia last week to give his young players experience and boy did that work as Maks enjoyed his first ever Eurotour match, and a victory to go with it. After losing his second match against Austria’s Patrick Kiesel 9-3, Maks faced Sweden’s Kai Kraft but the day seemed to get the better of him losing 9-6. 12 hours of pool is a tough day for the pro’s, let alone a 11 year old but we’ll be seeing more from this young talent in the future.
Maks Benko (SLO)｜Photo © EPBF
Also during the day, we were treated to a world championship match-up when the current U19’s world 9-ball champion, Spain’s Jonas Souto took on two time world champion, Germany’s Thorsten Hohmann. Some excellent cue ball control by Souto and Thorsten not getting his breaks right gave the Spaniard a comfortable 9-6 win sending Thorsten the long route via the losers side.
Moritz Neuhausen, Germany’s rising star showed why so many people think he’ll make the German team in the very near future as he outplayed Russia’s Ruslan Chinakov 9-1 and now meets Serbia’s experienced Andreja Klasovic Friday at 10:30 local time.
Moritz Neuhausen (From EC Youth)｜Photo © EPBF
You can watch all the matches live at www.kozoom.com with the results and schedule found at www.epbf.com/tournaments/eurotour/