Souquet and Drago take a shattering defeat

Jun 4, 2015

At the Dynamic Billard German Open in Baunatal, Germany, Ralf Souquet (GER) loses his first winner’s round match to Kevin Becker (GER) by a whisker with 8:9. Ralf Souquet (GER)
The first huge upset of the German Open has happened. Ralf Souquet lost his first match to Kevin Becker with 8:9. The match was a tough fight from start to the end. However, after 14 racks at a score of 7:7, it was Souquet to get on the hill first, turning the scoreboard to 8:7 in his favor. Rack 16 brought some safety shots by both players when suddenly Souquet had the better end on his side, being at the table in command of the match. But he committed a grave mistake. He attempted to play a safety shot on the 6-ball, hiding the cue ball behind the 9-ball. But the cue ball rolled too far and the outcome was an easy layout for Becker. Kevin Becker pocketed that 6-ball and the remaining other balls to turn the match into a hill-hill thriller at 8:8. Then again, the match evolved into a safety battle after the break shot. It was remarkable that the 4-ball was pretty close together with the 9-ball in the vicinity of the corner pocket. Kevin Becker got to the table, finding himself in the position to pocket the 1-ball, 2-ball and 3-ball. Then, he played a kiss shot into the 4-ball with the cue ball pocketing the 9-ball in full accordance with the rules of the game. That brought him the 9-8 victory over Ralf Souquet who needs to fight his way through the loser’s side now while Becker can continue his quest on the winner’s side of the event.
Another remarkable match was the encounter between Tony Drago (MLT), „The Tornado“, and Nick Malai (GRE). Both players are known for their fast speed at the table. After 30 minutes, Malai was already leading 7:1 since Drago committed some errors in the early stage of the match. But then the tide seemed to turn in favor of Drago. He pulled back rack after rack from Malai and after 11 racks the score was 4:7 for Malai with Drago being at the table. He broke and it looked like he would run another rack on Malai to make the score 5:7, closing in on his Greek opponent. But then Drago missed a horrible shot on the 6-ball. He really seemed to be out of his concentration and allowed Malai to get on this hill after that grave mistake. With worse coming to worst, Malai ran another rack on Drago, winning the match with 9:4, not allowing Drago another visit to the table.
Other remarkable results from today include Florian Hammer (GER) defeating Poland’s Tomasz Kaplan with 9:6. Abdullah Alyousef (KUW) won over Can Salim-Giasar (GER) by a hair’s breadth with 9:8 in the first round. Then, he encountered Karl Boyes (GBR) who got the better of him with 9:5. „This is my 5th Euro-Tour event, and I simply love playing it“, stated Alyousef. He is one of the players from the Arab region that regularly come to play in the Euro-Tour. „I really enjoy the tour and I think it is very well organized. My favorite place is Austria“, admitted Alyousef with a smile. Another German young gun, Joshua Filler, defeated „The Maharaja“ Imran Majid (GBR) with 9:6 in the first winner’s round. Erki Erm (EST) surprisingly won 9:5 over Daniele Corrieri (ITA).
The tournament will continue tonight with winner’s round 2 matches at 23:30 local time. This late round is due to the fact that there are so many participants here to compete in Germany.
The open tournament will continue tomorrow morning at 09:00 local time. 16 tables can be watched LIVE throughout the event on www.kozoom.com. The event is hosted by the European Pocket Billiard Federation EPBF and organized by International Billiard Promotion, IBP. For further information, please check the event website at www.eurotouronline.com, visit our Facebook page or contact the EPBF press office at press@epbf.com