Full results from the evening’s play:
Group A: BOSNIA HERZOGOVINA (Pehlivanovic/Piknjac) 7 – 2 NORWAY
(Gangflot/Schjetne)
Group B: POLAND (Szewczyk/Zielinski) 7 – 5 ITALY (Candela/Petroni)
Group C: SPAIN (Alcaide/Sanchez Ruiz) 7 – 3 ALBANIA (Kaci/Spahiu)
Group D: GERMANY (Filler/Bongers) 7 – 4 SERBIA (Pecelj/Klasovic)
The Longoni 9 Ball League, a brand-new scotch doubles tournament, continued on Thursday in Sankt Johann Im Pongau, Austria with the final group matches producing the four semi-finalists. With the competition comprised of four groups of three teams, all matches this evening proved to be final eliminators and there were wins for Bosnia Herzegovina, Poland, Spain and Germany.
The format saw the top-ranked athletes from the current EPBF Euro Tour standings compete in a team scotch doubles format. The winners of each group progressed to the semi-finals while the bottom placed team were relegated from next year’s competition. The second placed teams return to next year’s event.
With Greece already relegated, having lost both of their opening matches, it fell to Bosnia & Herzegovina and Norway to face off for a spot in the semi-finals which take place on Friday 30th September in Slovenia.
It was plain sailing for BIH as they opened up a 4-1 lead but a loose safety from Pehlivanovic allowed Norway to reduce the deficit. However, that was to be Norway’s last success as Bosnia Herzegovina pair concluded a 7-2 victory to be the first team to reach the semi-finals.
Afterwards, Pehlivanovic was delighted with the win; “It feels incredible and very proud. At the last World Cup of Pool, we played for the first time together and didn’t do so well as we didn’t know each other so good but we’re improving and hopefully we can go on to win the Longoni 9 Ball League.
“For me scotch doubles are tough but it depends who you’re playing with. I think the most important thing in this game is that there has to be a guy who is going to listen. Me and Adjin are good now and if we didn’t play well together, we wouldn’t be in the semi-finals.”
Meanwhile on the table running concurrently, Poland reached the hill first to leave their Italian opponents on the ropes as they faced relegation from next year’s event. Italy, though, weren’t done as they took the 11th game to give themselves some hope at 6-4 down.
Szewczyk, though, failed to pocket a ball from the break but Candela couldn’t capitalise on it for Italy and the Polish duo ran through the table for the 7-5 win, effectively eliminating the other group team – Austria – from the competition.
The evening’s second round of matches saw wins for Germany over Serbia in Group D which dumped the Serbs out of next year’s event and left Estonia in second place. In Group C, the Spanish pair of Sanchez Ruiz and Alcaide capitalised on their recent World Cup win as they beat Albania to dump them out and hand second spot to the Netherlands.
The semi-final line-up is:
Bosnia & Herzegovina v Spain
Poland v Germany
Both semi-finals take place in Lasko, Slovenia on the evening of Friday 30th September and the teams will be made up of the two highest-ranked players from each competing country following the Petrich Open Euro Tour event in early August.
Matches can be viewed live on the free Kozoom platform, TV.kozoom as well as on the Longoni 9 Ball League & EPBF Facebook pages.