European straight pool is firmly in dutch hands. In the final match, Nick van den Berg (NED) defeated his teammate, defending Champion Niels Feijen (NED) with 125:94.
Nick van den Berg goes for straight pool title
The match started out pretty evenly. After one hour, the tournament director Waldemar Debski from Poland decided that the match was too slow and out a shot clock on it. Feijen did not agree with this decision and made his coach Johny van Rijkel protest against that. The Sports Director of the EPBF, Anamaria Matesic, decided that Debski’s decision was totally in order and the match continued with the shot clock. Feijen managed to take a 94:70 lead over van den Berg, when he missed a shot. That was the chance that van den Berg needed. After having lost to Feijen in exactly the same final last year in North Cyprus, he took revenge for that this year and won the title. „I am really happy that I have won the title“, stated van den Berg after the match. „When I won the first title a few years ago, I thought I could lay back and did not achieve much more during the rest of the EC. That will not be the case this year“, mentioned van den Berg as a warning to his fellow competitors.
The first semi-final between Feijen and Francisco Diaz (ESP) was pretty much a one man show. After a few safety shots, Feijen ran 104 balls on Diaz. The Spaniard never really recovered from that blow. He tried everything he could, ran a few balls, even committed 3 consecutive fouls for a serious penalty in a situation where he could not find good safety to play. It always looked as if Feijen had the better answers to Diaz’ play. 125:1 was the final result that booked Feijen a ticket in the final match.
Van den Berg had to deal with Tomasz Kaplan (POL) in the other semi-final match. Kaplan, van den Berg and Feijen can be considered regulars in this late stage of the European Championships. These three were also in the medal ranks last year. Van den Berg had the better start today. He stormed off with a 51:28 lead. Then the match turned tactical. Van den Berg also committed a 3-foul-penalty and lost 15 points which brought the match back to draw. Players at this level prefer this method to giving the opponent a shot because at that level, it could mean the end of the match. Even after the 3-foul-situation, the match remained a tactical maneuvers. Van den Berg managed to get going in the right moments and scored the needed points to win over Kaplan with 125:61 in the end.
Quarter-final results:
Niels Feijen (NED) v Stephan Cohen (FRA) 125:44
Francisco Diaz (ESP) v Serge Das (BEL) 125:41
Tomasz Kaplan (POL) v Maximilian Lechner (AUT) 125:107
Nick van den Berg (NED) v Marco Teutscher (NED) 125:71
In between the last 16 and the last 8 players of the straight pool competition, one round of team matches were played. It was the loser’s round 1 and these were the results:
LUX v ESP 0:2
DEN v CZE 2:0
FRA v GRE 2:1
NOR v FIN 0:2
TUR v SLO 0:2
SWE v RUS 1:2
The tournament will continue tomorrow at 09:00 local time with women’s straight pool matches. During the day, team and 10-ball matches will be played in all divisions.
All matches can be viewed LIVE at www.kozoom.com. 24 tables in HiRes quality are providing you with all the action of the event. You do not miss out one single match! Join today!
More information about participants, schedules, achievements, rankings, etc can be found on the event website www.epconline.eu.
The event will be hosted by the European Pocket Billiard Federation EPBF and organized by International Billiard Promotion Foundation IBPF.