Kristina Tkach, Russia’s golden girl, cemented her place as Europe’s number one with a dominant performance at the inaugural Predator Women’s Eurotour here in Treviso Italy. After cruising through to the semi-finals, she overcame a scare as Slovenia’s Ana Gradisnik led 6-5 and looked to be reaching her first ever final when a small mistake allowed Kristina to level the score at 6-6. Needing only one more rack, Ana had another chance to beat Kristina but when she missed the six-ball, it sealed her fate and allowed Kristina to finish the match and enter the final arena. Kristina’s opponent in the final, Belarusian Marharyta Fefilava who was ranked third in Europe was sensing a weakness or maybe fatigue as Kristina spent the previous weeks collecting gold medals at the European Championships, but it wasn’t to be.
Kristina came flying out of the blocks taking a 5-1 lead and seemed on course for another gold but Marharyta fought back admirably. Marharyta pulled back rack after rack and got very close but when the score was at 6-5 to Kristina, she made an error that proved costly and Kristina went on to claim the crown and become the inaugural Predator women’s Eurotour champion and has now amassed an amazing seven European tour titles in her young career already.
Results and rankings can be found at www.epbf.comThe 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 or visit us on Facebook for regular news clips or contact our press office [email protected].