Men Down To 16 As Heat Turned Up in Austria

Alpina Hotel, St Johann im Pongau, Austria

WE ARE AT the mid-point of the Predator Pro Billiard Series Austria as another round saw the  Billard Beckmann Men’s Open reduce down to the final 16 while the Carrinho Women’s Open will see 16 contesting the loser’s qualification to join the eight already qualified players. Play also took place in the Predator Mixed Doubles with half the field of 32 now out of the competition.

The round of 32 completed today in the Billard Beckmann Men’s Open and there are two home players still alive in the event. Albin Ouschan defeated Konrad Juszczyszyn, while Max Lechner got the better of countryman Mario He to progress to the next round where he will meet Aleksa Pecelj who put paid to Wojciech Szewczyk’s hopes.

In his previous match, Lechner had defeated Kristian Mrva and in a notable achievement, ran the first set when his opponent’s sole contribution was losing the lag.

Commented Max, “It’s really nice, a couple of friends are here, my wife is here and I really enjoy it, the weather is nice so everything is perfect. I’m a professional for more than six years so it’s not so hard for me to focus when the matches come around.

On the run against Mrva, “It was crazy even to make a ball four times with that break format, it’s kind of tough to do and obviously a lot of luck involved but I had a couple of tricky layouts but I ran them all and I realised that after the first set that he didn’t even have a shot, well, I was pretty happy about that.

“I’ve played really, really well in the singles so far and with Mario, 4-0, 3-0 when I missed the first shot of the tournament. I changed my shaft two weeks ago so I didn’t have too much time to practice with it but I guess it was a good choice,” he concluded.

Another winner was Georgi Georgiev, who is always a dark horse in big international fields. The Bulgarian went to the one-loss side early but battled through beating Arseni Sevastyanov, Moritz Neuhausen and then Robbie Capito in the last 32 to progress.

He said, “It was a great match for both of us – we struggled with the break, especially him so all I was thinking was that I had to capitalise on my chances so I did that. The first set could have gone both ways but I managed to win it 4-3. On the second set I thought I had to push and I went up 3-1 and then I had an easy chance to finish the game and I had a combo but the shot clock rushed me a little bit but, in the end, I was staying positive as I’d have a chance and, in this format, you always have a chance.

“I put goals on myself and my first goal was to reach the single elimination and now my goal is to go all the way, match by match, ball by ball and I don’t think about whether I’m under-rated or not because when I do the things I do, and when I’m 100% focused, I can beat anyone. With every match I feel more and more confident,” he added.

Eight players survived the Winner’s Qualification round to take their places in the last 16 of the Carrinho Women’s Open. The remaining eight will come from the last round on the one-loss side which takes place at 10.00 on Saturday morning.

One of those eight was Pia Filler who very dug deep to get over the line as she defeated Muyan Zhang via a tense shoot-out. Filler wasn’t at the races in the first, losing the rack 4-0, but she battled back to take the second 4-3. All the drama happened in the spot-shot decider as both players missed but it was the German who held her nerve to prevail.

Afterwards, she said, “Holy moly, what a match! I played very poor at the beginning; I was struggling and couldn’t get used to the table speed. I just couldn’t feel it but it that format, it doesn’t really matter if you’re going to lose the first set. But I kept fighting and all I could think was that I don’t want to a shoot-out with her because I’ve been there before and she nails them all the time.

“She’s super strong but I only made two and it was enough because she only made two and scratched on one of them. I know I’m mentally strong and I’m the kind of player who never gives up. There’s always some kind of hope in me and you’ve got to keep fighting,” she concluded.

There was a strong representation of Asian stars on the winners side, numbering six from eight and one of those was China’s Han Yu, who came through a three-setter to push Kristina Tkach into tomorrow’s last chance saloon.

Commented Han, “I didn’t think too much about the game, I just tried my best and didn’t think about winning or losing –  just fighting for every game. It’s beautiful here, like you’re having a vacation so it’s a bonus but I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself and just fight for every game.”

On Saturday, play starts with Loser’s Qualification at 10.00 in the women’s event. The men’s last 16 matches go off at 13.00 and the mixed doubles plays down to the quarter-finals in the late afternoon and evening. The live stream for Tables 1, 2 and 3 can be found on YouTube, via the Pro Billiard TV channel –  https://www.youtube.com/@ProBilliardTV

For all results, live scoring and draw visit the events’ homepage https://probilliardseries.com/event/2026-austria/

Predator Pro Billiard Series Equipment

• Predator ARC 9-Foot Pool Table
• Predator Arcos II Pool Balls
• Predator Aerorack Billiard Triangle
• Predator X Simonis Cloth

Predator Pro Billiard Series Sponsors

• Predator Group
• Little Monster
• Kamui Brand
• Box Billiards
• Yalin
• Iwan Simonis
• Aramith
• Billard Beckmann
• Carrinho
• VenBilliards