The titles at the 8-ball individuals at the Dynamic Billard European Championships for Youth at the Golden Tulip Jagershorst Hotel in Leende, The Netherlands, have been taken. Kristina Tkach (RUS) won the girls division, Fedor Gorst (RUS) took the U19 and Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) went for Gold in the U17.
Left to right: Sanjin Pehlivanovic, Kristina Tkach and Fedor Gorst
In the U19, Russia’s Fedor Gorst had one very good day today. First, he defeated Kamil Szaszor (POL) in the quarterfinal-match 7:4. Then, he went ahead and wiped the floor with the defending Champion Patrick Hofmann (GER) 7:1. Hofmann could not make a ball on his break and Gorst ran out everything that was possible and even some racks that seemed impossible. In the final match, he met Daniel Maciol (POL). That match was as dominant by Gorst as the semi-final before. He just made no mistakes and had a very good break shot which allowed him to run his racks when it was his turn to break. Since his opponent could not benefit from his break shot, the final match turned into a one-man-show for Fedor Gorst which is clearly displayed by the high final result.
Top Eight Players U19 8-Ball
1. Fedor Gorst (RUS)
2. Daniel Maciol (POL)
3. Patrick Hofmann (GER)
Mark Magi (EST)
5. Kamil Szaszor (POL)
Kasper Ostlund (SWE)
Aleksa Pecelj (SRB)
Domagoj Loncarek (CRO)
In the U17, the final match was played be Wiktor Zielinski and Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH). They already played the final match in 8-ball last year in Albania as well as this year’s straight pool final. Last year, Pehlivanovic won; this year, Zielinski took the title. Their third encounter was promising to be a thrilling and exciting match. And that promise was kept. After the first 8 racks, the score was all square at 4:4. Rack 9 was opened by Zielinski. He had two balls down and a good layout in front of him. That was the perfect chance for him to get to the hill first. But while he was pocketing his solids, he created a problem with the 7-ball. When he tried to solve it, he hid the cue ball behind a striped ball and committed a foul. This was an unforced error and Pehlivanovic used his chance as cold as ice and ran the rack, taking a 5:4 lead himself now. In rack 10, Pehlivanovic executed the break shot. An interesting incident happened there. The referee racked the 8-ball in the wrong position of the rack. Neither the referee nor Pehlivanovic seemed to notice the mistake. After Pehlivanovic had executed the break shot and pocketed a ball with a nice layout in front of him, Zielinski protested against the break shot. The referee was of the opinion that no player should get an advantage from such a situation and decided to continue the rack since the protest was too late. Pehlivanovic ran all balls and won the rack and the match 6:4 after a thrilling match over Wiktor Zielinski.
Top Eight Players U17 8-Ball
1. Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH)
2. Wiktor Zielinski (POL)
3. Jere Virtaranta (FIN)
Szymon Kural (POL)
5. Christoffer Lentz (DEN)
Karo Langstroem (FIN)
Andreas-Steen Bonnelykke (DEN)
Simon Thomassen (NOR)
In the girls division, Kristina Tkach was again the player who set the marks here in Leende. In the whole 8-ball tournament, she lost four (4!) single racks in total. She won the final match 5:0 over Weronika Karwik (POL) after having also whitewashed Darya Siranchuk (UKR) in the semi-final. Her outstanding performance makes the girls division this year a bit predictable unfortunately. However, she is a well deserved Champion and once again showed her class and her superiority.
Top Eight Players Girls 8-Ball
1. Kristina Tkach (RUS)
2. Weronika Karwik (POL)
3. Darya Siranchuk (UKR)
Kinga Pietrzak (POL)
5. Paula Bachmeier (GER)
Cindy Keller (SUI)
Nina Torvund (NOR)
Viktorija Gurova (RUS)
Medal table after 3 of 5 events:
Earlier today, the 9-ball competition started with matches in the individual divisions. In the girls division, Nina Torvund (NOR) defeated Palina Chernik (BLR) 6:4 in the first winner’s round. In the U17, 12-year-old Szymon Kural (POL) got the better of Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) and won 6:4. In the U19, Fedor Gorst (RUS) will meet Daniel Maciol (POL) in the first winner’s round to be played tomorrow at 09:00 CET.
Every day, one match from the events will be shown LIVE on the Facebook page of the EPBF. All Facebook users may check out the high standard of quality which is provided for all the events and see what the Kozoom members receive all the time. You can see all the matches live via www.kozoom.com who stream the whole event on 23 tables on the internet LIVE. The FB live matches are announced on the EPBF Facebook page around noon every day. Results and schedules can be found at www.europeanpoolchampionships.eu so why not come and check out all the LIVE action of the Dynamic Billard European Championships for Youth.
The event is hosted by the European Governing Body for Pool, the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) and organized by International Billiard Promotion (IBP). For further information and reference please go to the federation website www.europeanpoolchampionships.eu, visit us on Facebook or check out our youtube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office [email protected].