WE ARE AT the mid-point of the 2025 season on the PREDATOR EURO TOUR series as both Open and Women’s event take place this week within the impressive event space at the Terme Olimia resort on the Slovenia/Croatia border. The KAMUI SLOVENIAN OPEN gets underway tomorrow morning, while the Women’s open runs on Saturday and Sunday.
With the Open event listing 150 competitors, the action starts at 9.00 on Thursday morning and plays down to the final two, who contest the title at 20.00 on Saturday evening. Certainly, one of the favourites this week is the No.1 player on the Predator Euro Tour rankings, Germany’s Stefan Kasper.
2025 represents Kasper’s third full year on the Predator Euro Tour and he’s been trending in an upwards direction throughout, culminating in him sitting atop of the rankings. With three of the six events on the Euro Tour calendar now completed, a runners-up finish coupled by two semi-final spots have enabled his climb to the top and in addition, Stefan bagged a gold and a silver at European Championships in Estonia in the spring.
Commented Kasper, “I’m very happy with 2025 so far because I worked very hard over the winter and it paid off. Despite finishing high in every event and getting to the No.1 position, I don’t feel any kind of pressure. For sure I want to win a Euro Tour event, but if it happens, it happens.
The popular Kasper always looks impressively unflappable, even in the big moments, but insists his relaxed demeanour is ‘just the way I am.’ With a background in snooker, the German cueist has taken to pool like a duck to water.
“It’s difficult to say how it happened, because I wasn’t competing for almost 10 years after my snooker career ended. I started playing pool tournaments seriously about three years ago and my first international event was the Euro Tour in St. Johann two years ago.”
In keeping with his laidback style, Kasper is not one for announcing great ambitions within the game; “I don’t have a certain goal, I just want to be as good as I can. But one goal was to win a European title, which I did in Estonia winning the 8-ball division. I’m feeling good about this week and I hope I can go very deep in this tournament to stay on top of the Euro Tour ranking,” he added.
Starting on Saturday, the Kamui Slovenian Women’s Open gets underway with a field of 38 players. Ina Kaplan, a winner of three of the last six events, and runner-up last time out in St Johann im Pongau, will be starting as favourite, particularly with the absence of recently crowned Women’s World 8-Ball Champion, Jasmin Ouschan and Women’s Austrian Open winner Pia Filler.
Local hopes come in the form of Ana Gradisnik, currently ranked No.3 and looking to add a third Euro Tour title to her extensive resume. Her most recent win came in Treviso in 2022 although she triumphed in the 8-ball division at last year’s European Championships.
She said, “I’m very excited that it is in Slovenia because I really like playing at home and not having to travel a lot is very nice also especially since I have been travelling a lot the past few months.
“I just came back from playing in the US, so I’m feeling quite good and in stroke and it would be an absolute honour to win another title especially since it has been so long. 8-ball used to be my favourite game and honestly since I have been playing it more recently, I am liking it more and more again.
Ana is never seen at events without her partner, Roberto Bartol, who is no mean pool player himself, as well as their young child.
She added, “Traveling with my family is my favourite thing because it doesn’t let me get too preoccupied about winning or losing. Once I am done with the match, whatever happened happened, I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself if I lose. My family reminds me that there is more to life than pool.”
Streaming of Tables 1 and 2 for all Euro Tour and European Championships events can be found on YouTube, via the Pro Billiard TV channel – https://www.youtube.com/@ProBilliardTV
For all results, live scoring and draw, visit https://www.epbf.com/tournaments/eurotour/information/
EPBF Sponsors
▸ Predator Group
▸ Kamui Brand
▸ Iwan Simonis Billiard Cloth
▸ Aramith Billiard Balls
▸ Longoni Cues