The Dynamic Billard Klagenfurt Open are over and have a deserved winner. Ralf Souquet (GER) defeated Sebastian Ludwig (GER) in an exciting final with 9:6 and came up with an amazing comeback.
The final match did not start well for Souquet. The German BCA Hall of Famer had two balls down each in his first two break shots but no other ball touched the head string so he had to give the open table to Ludwig who cleared it and like that achieved a nice 3:0 lead over Souquet. In the next rack, Ludwig broke dry but Souquet missed the 1-ball. With this chance given, Ludwig increased the lead to 4:0. It took 5 racks to be played before Souquet got the chance to open his account and win his first rack to get to 4:1. As the match went along, Souquet got a bit better into the match and after 9 racks, the score was 5:4 in favour of Ludwig still.
Ralf Souquet (GER), taking his 23rd victory at Euro-Tour events
With his own break shot coming up, Ludwig decided to go for a timeout and get his things together again in order to maintain his lead over „The Kaiser“ and make it over the finish line first. But the tide has turned and fortune was reversed in the match. This time, Ludwig had two balls down on the break but the shot was illegal since no other ball broke the head string. Souquet used the chance and cleared the rack to get to 5:5. He even managed to win 3 more consecutive racks to get on the hill with 8:5. This after having trailed 1:5 in the match. What an amazing turnover from Souquet. He allowed one more point fro Ludwig who could not find any remedy against Souquet in the match anymore. In rack 15, Souquet used his chance and took the match with 9:6 to win his 23rd Euro-Tour tournament in his career! His experience and his perfection in his game made the difference today and brought him to this stellar success. This victory catapults Souquet into 2nd place of the new Euro-Tour rankings, trailing David Alcide (ESP) by 15 points only.
Top Eight Finishers
1. Ralf Souquet (GER)
2. Sebastian Ludwig (GER)
3. Denis Grabe (EST)
Mateusz Sniegocki (POL)
5. Maximilian Lechner (AUT)
Albin Ouschan (AUT)
Fedor Gorst (RUS)
Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH)
Top Ten Euro-Tour Rankings
1. David Alcaide (ESP)
2. Ralf Souquet (GER)
3. Niels Feijen (NED)
4. Albin Ouschan (AUT)
5. Nick van den Berg (NED)
6. Ruslan Chinakhov (RUS)
7. Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz (ESP)
8. Joshua Filler (GER)
9. Mario He (AUT)
10. Sebastian Ludwig (GER)
In the Klagenfurt Women Open, three players can be considered as highly favoured to win the event. One of course is Jasmin Ouschan (AUT). The Austrian superstar is always favoured in any women’s event. Here, she additionally performs on her home turf with the crowd backing her up big time. She might be thankful for that support since she had an injury to overcome from a bicycle accident a few weeks ago. Jasmin on her first match very convincingly with 7:3 over Ann-Sofie Lofgren (SWE). In her next match in the winner’s qualification round she made short work of Ewa Bak (POL), handing her a 7:1 defeat.
The next favourite is Kristina Tkach (RUS). The young Russian is a permanent component in European women’s pool and is the current #1 ranked player in the women’s ranking. Today, she had a tough job and hard work with Ana Gradisnik (SLO) who gave her a fierce fight in her first match. After 13 racks, Tkach was able to come out as a 7:6 victor over Gradisnik. After that she finished Ine Helvik (NOR) with 7:3 after having trailed 0:3 in the match.
A special appearance here in Klagenfurt has China’s World Games Gold Medallist Chen Siming (CHN). The superstar from Asia already stirred up some smoke in the open event by defeating several male players. Today, she started in the women’s event with a 7:2 victory over local Lisa Stadler (AUT). Then, she took down experienced Katarzyna Wesolowska (POL) with 7:1 even. In her third match for the day, Siming took down Eylul Kibaroglu (TUR) 7:4.
Tomorrow, the Klagenfurt Women’s Open will continue at 09:30 local time with matches from the last 16 players single elimination. The final match is scheduled for 14:30 CET.
Every day, one match from the events will be shown LIVE on the Facebook page of the EPBF for free. 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 every day. Results and schedules can be found at www.eurotouronline.com so why not come and check out all the LIVE action of the Dynamic Billard Klagenfurt Open.
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.eurotouronline.com visit us on Facebook or check out our youtube channel for regular news clips or contact our press office [email protected].