Mario He, Skyler Woodward and Shane van Boening Click the image to view the large photograph - use "back" to return here.
Top seeds through on day one at the Eurotour
With the Dynamic Billard Leende Open 2018 underway here in Leende Netherlands, there was relief for some top seeds on day one. Austria’s Mario He the current European number one had a great escape in his first-round match today against the Dutchman, Tim De Ruyter. It was a close encounter with the score line level at 6-6 when Mario found an extra gear after a poor shot from De Ruyter and eventually got over the line with a score 9-7. Chasing Mario in the rankings is Albania’s Eklent Kaci, who, with a decent result here in Leende will overtake Mario to claim first spot on the European rankings. Eklent has laid down his marker here with a routine victory over a Spanish newcomer Juan Antonio Pina 9-6 and now awaits the young Portuguese Samuel Santos at 3pm local time Friday.
The Americans came to town for this stop of the European 9-ball tour and they have a lot to gain here with some decent results. The USA Mosconi cup team is decided from the eight Americans who are here, so the pressure is on for them to perform. Tyler Styer came unstuck when meeting the experienced Karol Skowerski in his first match. Karol, with bags of experience, proved too much to handle for the young American winning in fine style 9-4 and now leaving the American a mountain to climb as he now faces the “Italian Stallion” Fabio Petroni in a must win match on the loser’s side Friday.
Oscar Dominguez is another American with an uphill climb, after losing to Austria’s Maximillian Lechner 8-9 and then winning against Saudi’s Amer Hadi Alderbani in a late match Thursday, he will face Germany’s Ruben Frick in a do or die match at 3pm Friday.
With USA’s Shane Van Boening, Skyler Woodward, Billy Thorpe, Mitchell Ellerman and Shane McMinn all through on the winner’s side, there’s still some jockeying for those team places yet.
Corey Deuel will face Poland’s Wiktor Zielinski in a mouth-watering match on Friday at 1:30pm. The up and coming Zielinski will be eager to take down a legend like Corey and has some form of his own as Wiktor already has a Eurotour title under his belt while Corey is visiting the Eurotour for the first time.
Spain’s Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz had Germany’s Joshua Filler all over the place in their first-round match. Filler raced off to a 6-2 lead only to watch as the Spaniard pulled back rack after rack and left Filler sitting on the same 6 racks he already had with the Sanchez winning the match 9-6.
Mark Mägi (EST), Yana Shut (BLR) and Guntars Grinums (LAT). Mezz Cues Baltic Pool League 2018 Stage III Champions Click the image to view the full size picture - use "back" to return here.
MEZZ CUES BALTIC POOL LEAGUE 2018 RIGA
Mägi made his corrections
Mägi was second not only on the last stage, but second in the last years Riga stage as well. Similarly, to the before mentioned stages Mägi got some serious opposition this time too. In his semi final he faced Timofey Sereda (BLR) and he managed to nearly escape when the final score was 8:7. Everything seemed to be under control in the final as well as Mägi got a comfortable 5:0 lead against Joonas Saska (EST). However, Saska did not wanted to follow Mägi’s plan and the comeback started which lead to 6:5 for Mägi. Regardless of Saska’s serious fight back Mägi did claim the win by 8:6.
Another semi-finalist was Vilius Ebbert-Schulte from Lithuania who lost to Saska by 5:8.
After the third stage the men’s overall ranking is very intriguing as the top eight is within eight points with Mark Mägi first, Joonas Saska second and Pijus Labutis third.
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I'm on my way to the GB 9 Ball Tour in Telford to set up a small stall and fit American Pool cue tips and meet up with all the regular players. I'm especially excited as there is a £10,000 prize fund at this event, so £100 of prize money per player, which is great odds in my book.
I'll also be running the 10-Ball Break and Dish competition which has over £2,000 in prize money if I remember rightly, so all-in-all, a pretty cash heavy weekend in store for some very lucky players who signed up for this event.
Over the weekend of 11-12 August 2018, the Wheelchair Cuesports Academy opened it’s doors to cuesport players of all disabilities for the inaugural Kamui Open Disability 9-ball Championship. It was the first event of it’s kind, hosted by the British Wheelchair Pool Players Association.
Before matches got underway, everyone who was in attendance observed a minute’s applause for Mick Langley, who sadly passed away shortly before the event took place. Langley was the gold medalist in the wheelchair snooker event at the Seoul Paralympic Games in 1988. The last time cue sports were included in the Paralympics.
In addition to the BWPPA tour players who entered the event, there were also two regulars from the WDBS snooker tour, Blake Munton and Josh Morrison who both impressed, and joining them was the Irish Wheelchair (English) 8-ball player Liam Casey, as well as ambulant player Dave Lango.
Casey had a tough introduction to the larger table game. He came through a hill-hill opening match against Frankie Gillen (7-6) before facing BWPPA no.1 Daniel Lee, who had earlier beaten Lango 7-2 in his first match. Lee’s experience told as he beat Casey 7-1. Grimsby’s Munton started his weekend well, with impressive performances over BWPPA tour regulars Matthew Lester (7-3) and Chris Brown (7-3). Elsewhere in the early stages recently crowned wheelchair English 8-ball Champion Dave Beaumont returned to 9-ball with a 7-3 loss to Roy Kimberley.
Tony Southern came through a tense opener, with a 7-5 win over Danny Luton. Southern followed up with an impressive 7-0 win over Morrison.
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2018 SUPREME MASTERS PREVIEW
The latest installment of the inaugural Supreme Pool Series begins this Friday morning and it is the most significant yet with £13,000 going to the eventual champion - the biggest amount this year, so far, in the world of English 8 Ball Pool.
Following on from the Jason Owen Open and Strachan Cup competitions held in May and July respectively, the Supreme Masters marks the halfway point of the campaign which will culminate at the Home Leisure Direct Grand Finals in December where a record-breaking £51,000 is on offer to the last player standing.
Liam Dunster goes into this third event as the series' number 1 ranked player after back-to-back final finishes. With the Supreme Masters seeing the season debut of Blackball, his preferred ruleset, the current B.I. World Champion will surely fancy his chances. The ultra consistent Scotsman opens up his campaign against Matthew Schofield.
Last month's winner Phil Harrison begins his bid for a double by facing Darrell Whitworth, whilst event 1 champion Scott Gillespie will be looking to get back on track after a disappointing outing last time, although he has a very stern examination with fellow Scot Mark Boyle in one of the standout ties of the opening round.
Five times and reigning WEPF World Champion Mick Hill is the favourite with the bookmakers again. After looking formidable throughout at the Strachan Cup, Hill was denied by a clinical Harrison during the Semi-Finals in a match that saw him struggle to make a ball off his breaks. Mark Astbury has the unenviable task of tackling the English 8 Ball legend first up.
It will be another Supreme Pool Series tournament that can boast participation from all three of the sport's reigning World Champions. IPA World Champion and professional number 1 Ben Davies will be involved in a blockbusting all-Welsh fixture with the in-form Jordan Shepherd, who recently won the IPA European Professional title under a fortnight ago.
Posted by admin on Monday, August 13 2018 @ 11:44:20 UTC (88 reads)
www.gb9balltour.com Click the image to view the larger image - use "back" to return here.
The 2018 UK Open has been announced and will be taking place 7-9 September at the Park Inn hotel in Telford.
Last year’s edition had 104 runners and its expected that this year will be even better. With a £10,000 prize fund and Mosconi Cup ranking points on offer, don’t miss out your opportunity to spar with some of the best in the world and complete your application form at www.gb9balltour.com/enter-an-event
Chris Melling continues to have one of his best seasons since returning to pocket billiards from snooker four years ago.
The stocky Englishman jumped out to a huge lead against Jayson Shaw then nearly gave the match away before rallying late to defeat friend and occasional roommate in the finals of the World Pool Series 8-Ball Classic Championship Friday evening at the IDM Club in Bucharest, Romania.
It was the second significant victory for Melling in 2018, having won the 9-ball competition of the Derby City Classic earlier in the year. He was also the runner-up in the ICEA Chinese Pool World Championships and finished third at the WPS Aramith 9-Ball Players Championship earlier in the year.
“I feel like I deserved it. I felt like I took most of my chances,” Melling said after the match.
The early stages of the title session were almost a mirror image to Melling’s semifinal match earlier in the day against Ioan Ladanyi, as he used a pair of dry breaks from Shaw coupled with three breaks-and-runs to build a 5-1 lead. He committed his first unforced error in the eighth game, misplaying position on the 15-ball and ultimately missing the shot. After Shaw cleared the table to cut the deficit to 6-2, Melling used two unforced errors and a dry break from Shaw and added in a break-and-run to win four consecutive racks and surge ahead, 10-2.
However, Shaw would not go quietly into the Romanian night.
He cleared the table after Melling missed the 9-ball in the 13th game, broke-and-ran and capitalized on two missed shots and a dry break by Melling to cut the lead to 10-6 heading into a 15-minute intermission. Shaw continued applying pressure after the break, taking advantage of a misplayed safety and another missed shot by Melling while mixing in another break-and-run to cut the lead to 12-10. Shaw pulled within one game when he ran out after Melling failed to pocket a ball on the break in the 23rd game.
“Jayson just showed how much character he has. The will to win from being 10-2 down against me,” Melling said. “Without blowing my own trumpet, there’s no one in the world who can get close to me when I’m 10-2 in front and he just showed how good he is.”
That’s as close as Shaw would get. Melling ran out the 24th and 26th games after Shaw broke dry on both occasions. He added a break-and-run of his own in the 25th rack to push the lead to 16-11. Shaw finally landed a ball on the break and ran out in the 28th game, but it was too little too late as Melling did the same to close out the match in the subsequent game.
Shaw struggled with the break throughout the championship, failing to pocket a ball seven times in 14 opportunities. The Scotsman said after the match he didn’t feel that all of the balls were frozen to each other on some racks, adding that rules prohibited requesting a re-rack regardless.
“I’m not disappointed in losing. I’m disappointed in not getting the balls touching,” Shaw said.
“He was very unlucky with his breaks. The dry breaks cost him the match. That’s the in and the out of it really. Anyone who plays pool knows that.” Melling said.
The 8-Ball Classic Championship is the third event of the four-tournament 2018 World Pool Series. This event will be held at the IDM Club in Bucharest, Romania from August 7th to 10th 2018. The World Pool Series is sponsored by Rasson, Aramith, Predator, Iwan Simonis, Tiger, and Kamui. Our suppliers and partners are Billiards Digest, CueScore, Outsville, and the WPA.
Mezz Ace Series - launching November - teaser shots revealed so far!
Posted by admin on Monday, August 06 2018 @ 12:45:54 UTC (312 reads)
www.mezzcue.com Click the image to view the larger image - use "back" to return here. ACE-185 : Ebony Cue. The white Bigger Juma diamonds with smaller curly maple + Paua shell diamonds design in the forearm and butt sleeve. Irish linen wrap, Stainless steel joint collar, Gunmetal almite coated joint pin, new WX Alpha shaft.
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