THE POOL CONTINUES tomorrow (Thursday) at the Gandia Palace Hotel as the Predator Spanish Open gets underway in both open and women’s divisions. After the highs and lows of the Little Monster Men’s, Women’s and Mixed Doubles International Opens as well as the Predator WPA Juniors which saw three new World Champions crowned, another four days of high-quality pool action is anticipated.
Both events have very strong full-fields, capped at 192 for the open and 60 for the women’s tournament. The open event, not surprisingly has its biggest entry from Spain with 27 players. Germany and Poland are close behind with 26 entrants, while the Italian representation is 14. For the first time this season, and going forward, the two events take place over four days with both finals taking place on Sunday evening at 17.00.
Predator Euro tour titles this year have been the domain of Poland and Germany with Josh Filler winning the first two in Treviso and Tallinn, then Mieszko Fortunski victorious in St Johann. Marco Spitzky was a winner in Slovenia, before young Polish up-and-comer Dominik Jastrzab took the honours In Assen in September.
Jastrzab, 20, who had a storied career as youth player including lifting the 2021 WPA Junior World Championship Under 17s, was the seventh-ever Polish winner on the Euro Tour and second youngest behind Wiktor Zielinski.
He said, “I think the best part of coming from Poland is to participate in the game, because we have, I don’t even know how many, 15 people that can achieve a Euro Tour title. It’s pretty amazing to play with some of the best players in Europe and the world. It’s always new lessons for me from the better guys like Wojciech Szewczyk or Daniel Maciol who’s my team mate so I can learn from them.
“For sure winning the Euro Tour was a big thing for me maybe even if I don’t feel it. I probably have more confidence within me and If I’m a better player? I hope so, of course, but I’m trying to play my best and I’ll do my best to play my game in this tournament. It was like a barrier that I beat in my mind and I have a lot of good things from winning the title, and more belief to go deep in tournaments,” added Jastrzab.
The Predator Women’s Spanish Open can boast its biggest and most international field of the year with seven athletes from outside of the European space competing. Included are three Chinese Taipei players, two from China and from Australia, Hung Meng-Hsia, whose one previous outing on the Euro Tour resulted in her winning the Lasko Open in Slovenia in October 2023.
The highest-ranking player in the field is Austria’s Sandra Baumgartner whose strong re-emergence this year has seen her rise to second in the rankings. Baumgartner was a regular tour player around a decade ago but took a step back from the game to focus on other things. She took her first steps back in 2024 and has played the full season this year, racking up two runners-up finishes, as well as a third and fifth placing.
Commented Sandra, “I’ve not been playing for some years and I just started this in the beginning of the year to play the Euro Tour regularly, and yeah, I don’t know what’s different. But yes, I really like it. I also like that everything has improved since back then. I really like the TV arena and to be in the spotlight.
“I missed out on the Pro Billiard Series event because of work, where I’m brand manager for a distributor of exclusive cosmetic brands. I enjoy it very much and when I’m travelling now, I can work from my computer. I get enough time off and I’m heading to the World 9-Ball Championship in Jacksonville next week.
“I think it’s good that there are some Asian players competing this week. It’s just more competition for all of us, so we’re pushing each other. I don’t know so many Asian players because I don’t play outside of Europe, but it’s still exciting and good for the tour to become more international in that respect.
“Whether I can win this week, that’s a tough question since the competition is better. I try to take it match-by-match but sometimes, of course, you think about what will happen and what can happen, but actually, you shouldn’t even think match-by-match, just ball-by-ball,” she concluded.
Action starts at 9.00 on Thursday morning and 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/@
For all results, live scoring and draw, visit https://www.epbf.com/