On the second day of the European Billiards Championships in Antalya/Turkey the first gold medal winner was crowned. The new European Champion in 1-cushion on the match table is Raul Cuenca from Spain, who defeated Jean-Paul de Bruijn (Netherlands) with 120:36 points after eight innings.
Cuenca started the match with a run of 30 points and did not let himself be disturbed by the direct counterattack of his opponent. Immediately afterwards, the Spaniard added another 46 points to make it 77:34. After a five-minute break, Cuenca continued his great play and finished the game with further runs of 18 and 25.
Earlier in the afternoon, Dutchman Raymund Swertz and Pascal Dessaint (France) had failed in the semifinals. Swertz had to admit defeat in the duel with his compatriot Jean-Paul de Bruijn with 62:120 after 15 innings, while Dessaint and Raul Cuenca played for well over two hours. In the end, the future European Champion had the upper hand with 120:86 after 34 innings.
In two other disciplines, the semifinalists and thus the medal winners have been determined. In 5-Pins, an Italian trio and a Danish player are still in the race for the European crown.
The quarterfinals, however, were anything but easy tasks for the Azzurri. Defending champion Michelangelo Aniello was trailing 1:2 after sets, but then managed to win with strong nerves 60:57 against Ulisse Calzi (Switzerland) in the deciding set. The match was similar for Andrea Quarta, who went up two gears in the fourth and fifth set and defeated Max Gabel from Germany 3:2.
In the all-Italian duel, Paolo Marcolin won 3:2 against Achille Mignolo, while in the last quarterfinal, Erling Sjörup and Rune Kampe faced each other. The two Dans fought an epic duel over five sets, at the end of which Kampe triumphed with 60:54.
Tomorrow's semifinal in the U25 3-cushion will be played by the winner of the "Next Generation" tournament last weekend. Burak Hashas from Turkey defeated Dimitrios Seleventas (Greece) in his quarterfinal with 40:32. In parallel, Alessio D'Agata (Italy) and Marcos Morales from Spain played a great match with averages above 1.5, which D'Agata finally won with 40:36.
In the evening session, Nikolaus Kogelbauer (Austria) and Symen Ozbas from Turkey prevailed. The Austrian won a thriller against Lukas Mortensen of Denmark 40:39, while Ozbas edged Maxime Panaia of France 40:28.
The finals in these two disciplines are scheduled for Monday afternoon and early evening.
The competition in Artistique billiards also began today. The total of 24 athletes are divided into eight groups of three and will play the qualifiers for the round of 16. So far, two of the three group matches have been played. The group winners so far are Bastien Panis, Michael Hammen (both France), the Spaniard Xavier Fonellosa, Thomas Ahrens (Germany), Jop de Jong (Netherlands) and last but not least the Turk Haci Arap Yaman. The latter is the declared favourite to win the title after his performances so far.
The entire event can be followed in the paid livestream on tv.kozoom.com. Each of the 20 tables will be shown.
All results, schedules, daily press releases, photos and further information about the event can be found on the official media page.
You are welcome to use this press release for republication with a source attribution to "CEB | Billard1.net".
Back