GERMANY WON THE Team gold medals at the 2024 DYNAMIC BILLARD European Seniors Championships, as they got the better of Turkey in a tense match that went down to the final rack. It was Meric Reshat, the 14.1 45-plus gold medallist, who potted the winning 10-ball after the 8-ball and 9-ball points were shared. The Germans went one better than last year’s silver medal-winning effort in Slovenia
There were three matches to determine the destination of the gold medals. In 8-ball Cetin Aslan (Turkey) met Reiner Wirsbitzki, the 9-ball game saw Ferdi Ozdemir face off against Markus Kamuf and in 10-ball, it was Rasit Saylam versus Meric Reshat.
The German squad got off to the better start, leading 2-1 in two of the matches, while Ozdemir held a similar lead over Kamuf in the 9-ball. With Wirsbitzki quickly establishing a commanding 4-0 lead in the 8-ball, it looked like the decider would come from the other two matches.
Ozdemir moved into a 4-1 lead for Turkey in the 9-ball, which left the 10-ball game looking favourite to be the determining point. That was finely poised at 3-3 after Saylam completed a tricky run out. Reshat, though, pushed ahead in the middle stages to move into a 5-4 lead, with the 8-ball match concluding 7-0 in Wirsbitzki’s favour.
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As Ozdemir reached the hill, leading 7-2, Saylam levelled the 10-ball match to leave the final on a knife-edge at 5-5. Reshat responded with three balls down off his break shot but he hooked himself moving from 2 to 3 and scratched to give the advantage back to Saylam. He made no mistakes to put himself on the hill and Turkey a rack away from gold, pending a huge German comeback in the 9-ball where Ozdemir led 7-2.
Ozdemir soon completed an 8-3 victory to draw the scores level at 1-1, while Reshat dug in to take the 12th rack for 6-6 and it was a one rack shoot-out for the gold medal.
Saylam had an opportunity as he downed the 1 and 2 balls but then missed a pressure 3 but it ran safe. With so much at stake, neither player wanted to give it away but a fortunate snooker from Reshat caused his opponent to miss and with ball-in-hand, he was never going to get a bigger opportunity. To his credit, the German held his nerve to run the table and secure the gold medal for Germany.
Medals – Men
Gold – Germany – Reiner Wirsbitzki, Markus Kamuf, Meric Reshat
Silver – Turkey – Ferdi Ozdemir, Cetin Aslan, Rasit Saylam
Bronze – Spain – Pablo Garcia-Lagar, Francisco Diaz-Pizarro, Francisco Barcelo, Jose Luis Gonzalez-Perez
Poland – Roman Wasilewski, Mariusz Gnitecki, Dominik Zajac, Tomasz Bak.
Play continues on Saturday with the 8-ball finals scheduled for 21.15.