At the Dynamic Billard European Championships for U23 at the Golden Tulip Jagershorst Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands, Joshua Filler (GER) won the final match over Pijus Labutis (LIT) with 9:7.
The final match between Filler and Labutis did not start as expected. Though being the clear underdog in the match, Labutis had the better start and took a 3:0 lead over Filler. After taking rack 4 to turn the score to 3:1, Filler seemed to be back on track. But in rack 5 he made another big mistake when he missed an easy 7-ball and allowed this opponent to get away with 4:1. Then it was Filler to win the next two racks before Labutis scored another one. The scoreboard displayed 5:3 in favour of Labutis. The match was determined by high class safety play when necessary. As soon as one of the two contestants got a chance, they ran the rack. Labutis did not need to hide behind Filler. His performance was on the same level as the German’s. Consequently, the match was kept open for a long time.
Joshua Filler (GER)
Both scored racks in turn and none of the two was able to get away with a serious lead over the other. However, that changed after 10 racks. The score was 5:5 when Filler decided to shift into overdrive and took the next three consecutive racks in a row, getting on the hill with 8:5. The pressure was on Labutis now. He knew that every mistake from him would mean the end of the match. But even if he made no mistakes, Filler could still have his chance to end the match by running on his own break. With that situation in mind, Labutis performed really strong and got to 7:8 with his own break shot coming up. He had a ball down but not really a shot at the 2-ball. He played a push-out which Filler passed back to him. Labutis played a decent safety shot and Filler hit the 2-ball. Again Labutis went for a safety but this time, Filler got a shot at the 2-ball. He fired it in and closed the book on the match by running the rack and winning his second title this week, defeating Pijus Labutis 9:7 in the final match.
Top Eight Players 9-Ball U23
1. Joshua Filler (GER)
2. Pijus Labutis (LIT)
3. Casper Matikainen (FIN)
Tim De Ruyter (NED)
5. Samuel Santos (POR)
Mario Valchev (BUL)
Lukas Andersson (SWE)
Georgi Georgiev (BUL)
Medal table after 2 of 2 events:
That concludes the coverage from the Dynamic Billard European Championships for U23 at the Golden Tulip Jagershorst Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands. Four long weeks of consecutive pool billiards have come to an end today. The next event will be the upcoming Euro-Tour in Klagenfurt, Austria.
Results and schedules can be found at www.europeanpoolchampionships.
The event was 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.
Photo by EPBF/DK