10-ball titles for Tkach, Pehlivanovic and Dudanets

Jul 28, 2016

The 10-ball titles at the Dynamic Billard European Championships in Tirana, Albania, have been decided. Kristina Tkach (RUS) defended her title, Maksim Dudanets (RUS) and Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) claimed it in their respective division.
In the Under 17’s, Wiktor Zielinski (POL) encountered Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) in the final match. They have already met in the semi-final of the straight pool division and Pehlivanovic still had a score to settle since Zielinski defeated him then and went on to win the Gold Medal. Both contestants were a bit nervous in the early stage of the match which resulted in several missed ball and easy mistakes. It looked like Pehlivanovic would get his revenge. He was leading 4:2 after six racks played. Then Zielinski pulled back one rack, went for his time-out and pulled another rack off Pehlivanovic to tie the match at 4:4. The heat was on in the final. Both players really wanted that title and one could feel the pressure on both of them. Pehlivanovic got on the hill first but Zielinski again tied the match. Now we had a hill-hill thriller at 5:5. The better end happened for Pehlivanovic. He was able to run the final rack and win the match by a whisker with 6:5 in order to take revenge for straight pool and win the title in the 10-ball discipline.
Top Eight Finishers
1. Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH)
2. Wiktor Zielinski (POL)
3. Mustafa Alnar (TNC)
Jan van Lierop (NED)
5. Fedor Gorst (RUS)
Szymon Blazer (POL)
Igor Trifonov (RUS)
Andreas-Steen Bonnelykke (DEN)
In the Under 19’s, Dudanets met Daniel Maciol (POL) in the final match. Dudanets was the highly favored player in this match. He justified this estimation and went ahead pretty quickly. He took five of the first six racks in order to turn the scoreboard to 5:1 in his favor. Maciol seemed to find no recipe against the strong Russian. Then they both won one rack to make it 6:2. Suddenly, Maciol obviously got some more momentum and won two racks in a row. Now it was only 6:4 for Dudanets and it looked like Maciol could be able to start a comeback on him. But he failed playing a safety shot, leaving an open table to Dudanets. The Russian thanked him and ran the rack, winning the match and the 10-ball title 7:4.
Top Eight Finishers
1. Maksim Dudanets (RUS)
2. Daniel Maciol (POL)
3. Osman Sanlisoy (TNC)
Cyriel Ledoux (NED)
5. Mark Magi (EST)
Michael Schneider (SUI)
Kevin Schiller (GER)
Adrijan Todic (SUI)
In the girls division, Kristina Tkach and Diana Khodjaeva (BEL) are definitely the two strongest players in the field. Both were teammates recently at team Europe in the Atlantic Challenge Cup. So it was not necessarily a surprise to see them jousting in the final of the girls category. Both players are equally talented and also equally experienced so it would be a tight match. And it was. They both took racks in turn until the score was 3:3. Then Tkach went on the hill first and maybe got a psychological advantage on her side. However, rack eight was fiercely fought over but Tkach managed to snatch it from Khodjaeva, winning the girls division with 5:3 over her Belgian opponent.
Top Six Finishers
1. Kristina Tkach (RUS)
2. Diana Khodjaeva (BEL)
3. Dina Fatihova (RUS)
My Nguyen (SWE)
5. Jana Peters (GER)
Palina Chernik (BLR)
Medal table after 2 of 5 events:

The Dynamic Billard European Championships Youth will continue tomorrow morning at 09:00 CET with matches in the team competition. At 12:00 local time, event switches back to 8-ball individuals.
Left to right: Dudanets, Tkach and Pehlivanovic
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