Szolnoki dethroned Wahl

Jul 25, 2015

In the quarter-finals of the 8-ball Under 19’s of the Dynamic Billard European Championship Youth, Oliver Szolnoki (HUN) overpowered defending Champion Raphael Wahl (GER) with 7:3.
Oliver Szolnoki
Szolnoki had the better break shot throughout the match. Though he started a bit inconsistently, he grew stronger and pocketed very well. Wahl could not find his rhythm and after 9 racks he found himself trailing with 3:6. Having his own break shot coming up, Wahl decided to change his strategy. He executed a slow break shot in order to leave as many balls in clusters as possible. He saw that Szolnoki was playing with great confidence while he could not find his game so he needed to try a change. That final rack took over 21 minutes. Wahl only tried to leave bad positions for Szolnoki who struggled with that tactics. IN the end, Wahl tried to pocket one of his own balls together with one of Szolnoki’s group but he failed. He did not even block the pocket for Szolnoki. That was the moment when the curtain came down on Wahl. Szolnoki went to the table, pocketed all of his remaining balls and sank the 8-ball in the side pocket to win the match with 7:3. In the semi-final he will pl ay Maksim Dudanets (RUS) who won 7:2 over Daniel Guttenberger (AUT). The other semi-final in the Under 19’s will be played between Pascal Bruckmann (GER) and Krystian Cwikla (POL).
In the Under 17’s, defending Champion Daniel Maciol (POL) is still on track. He made his way through to the semi-finals with a more than clear 6:1 victory over Jan van Lierop (NED). In the semis, Maciol will face last year’s 9-ball Champion Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) who took down Kamil Szasor (POL) 6:1 to book his seat in the semi-final. Unheralded Sajid Raheem (NOR) will face last year’s bronze medallist Eklent Kaci (ALB) in the other semi-final.
The semifinals in the girls division will feature Kristina Tkach (RUS) playing with Diana Khodjaeva (BEL) and in an all German affair, Jana Peters will encounter Emily Heidergott. All semi-finals will begin at 17:00 CET on Sunday, July 26th.
The tournament will continue tomorrow at 09:00 local time with the start of the 9-ball individuals competition. At 17:00, the 8-ball semi-finals will be played, followed by the final matches.
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More information about participants, schedules, achievements, rankings, etc can be found on the event website www.epconline.eu.
The event will is hosted by the European Pocket Billiard Federation EPBF and organized by International Billiard Promotion Foundation IBPF.