In the U19 team competition, team North Cyprus defeated Team Sweden with 2:1 in the loser’s qualification round of the U19 team division of the Dynamic Billard European Youth Championships 2019 in Veldhoven, The Netherlands.
The match was pretty equal. In the 9-ball, Enis Sogular encountered William Viitanen. They have already met an hour earlier in the 8-ball individuals where Sogular defeated Viitanen 7:5. So Viitanen was up for revenge in this match. Things started out quite well for Viitanen. He won the first rack but then Sogular managed to take the next three racks off him before he was able to score another point making the score 3:2 for Sogular after 5 racks. But in rack 6 Viitanen again committed easy mistakes. Since Sogular scratched while executing the break shot, the Swede got to the table with ball in hand. But he pocketed his first ball and straight after found himself hooked for the next ball on. Viitanen seemed to be completely off track in the early stage of the match. At the same time, My Nguyen was leading 6:5 in 10-ball and Mustafa Alnar was 4:2 up in 8-ball. The match was completely open. It was the female player My Nguyen who scored the first point with a 7:5 victory over Cidam Dogukan. That brought team Sweden a 1:0 lead in the match. However, at that time Viitanen and Gronsten were both trailing behind.
William Viitanen (left) and Enis Sogular
And the next match which was over was the 9-ball between Sogular and Viitanen. Sogular managed to win this encounter with 8:3. So the score in the team match was 1:1. The decider had to come from the 8-ball match. By the time the team score went to 1:1., the score in the 8-ball was 6:3 in favour of Mustafa Alnar over Ragner Gronsten. It only took a few more minutes for Alnar to seal the deal for North Cyprus and pocket the deciding 8-ball, winning his match with 7:3 and bringing the victory to team North Cyprus with 2:1 over team Sweden. That victory knocks team Sweden out of the U19 team competition while North Cyprus are drawn into the quarter final of the event.
In an earlier match today in the U17 8-ball individuals, Arsenii Kovalerchik (RUS) met Ajdin Piknjak (BIH) in the round of the last 32 players single elimination. Since both players have already won medals this week, it was expected to be a close encounter. But Kovalerchik destroyed these hopes. He played too strong for Piknjak who could not find his break shot at all. Kovalerchik ran out whenever he visited the table. Piknjak either ran out of position or was unlucky when he scratched on his own break shot. After 7 racks played, the match was already over with a clear 6:1 victory for Kovalerchik. He will now face Ivan Rudenko (UKR) in the round of the last 16 players in U17 8-ball which will be played tomorrow at 14:00 CET.
The Dynamic Billard European Youth Championships 2019 will commence tomorrow morning at 09:00 CET with matches in the 9-ball individuals competition of the Girls and U19.
The Championships are played on 24 tables which are all streamed LIVE throughout the whole event. In order to be able to follow all the action LIVE, premium membership can be obtained at www.kozoom.com. Once a premium membership is held, all events for the respective period of time can be viewed LIVE. Additionally, a huge video gallery is contained in the website.
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.epconline.eu or visit us on Facebook for regular news clips or contact our press office [email protected].