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World Pool Masters XXVI
Tercentenary Sports Hall
Victoria Stadium
Bayside Road
GIBRALTAR
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Friday - Sunday 29-31 March 2019

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DAFABET WORLD POOL MASTERS: DOUBLE DOWN-UNDER DELIGHT IN GIBRALTAR

PRELIMINARY ROUND

Eklent Kaci (ALB) 7 – 2 Earl Strickland (USA)
Shane Van Boening (USA) 7 – 2 Kelly Fisher (ENG)
Petri Makkonen (FIN) 4 – 7 Justin Sajich (AUS)
Chris Melling (ENG) 3 – 7 Matt Edwards (NZL)
Wu Jiaqing (CHN) 4 – 7 Alex Pagulayan (CAN)
Fedor Gorst (RUS) 7 – 2 Naoyuki Oi (JPN)
Albin Ouschan (AUT) 7 – 2 Jeffrey De Luna (PHI)
David Alcaide (ESP) 7 – 3 Francisco Sanchez Ruiz (ESP)

THE NEW LOOK 26TH annual Dafabet World Pool Masters got underway at the Victoria Stadium in Gibraltar with eight matches over the opening day as the event included 24 players for the first time in its history.

There are eight seeded players who will enter the event in the first round while the other 16 competitors competed today in the preliminary round to determine which eight players went through to face the seeds.

The seeded players are:

European Champion: Konrad Juszczyszyn (POL)
Ladies World No.1: Han Yu (CHN)
Men’s World No.1: Alexander Kazakis (GRE)
Mosconi Cup MVP: Skyler Woodward (USA)
Previous Champion: Niels Feijen (NED)
Asian Champion: Ko Pin-yi (TPE)
US Open Champion: Jayson Shaw (SCO)
World 9 Ball Champion: Joshua Filler (GER)

Such was the high standard of the field that there were plenty of 50/50 games on the opening day. Alex Pagulayan, a former winner of this event, beat Wu Jiaqing, one of the favourites for this event, while young Russian Fedor Gorst, the 2017 WPA World Junior Champion, continued his emergence with a big win over Naoyuki Oi.

Albin Ouschan enjoyed a comfortable win over Philippines’ Jeff De Luna and in the final match of the afternoon, 2017 champ, David Alcaide beat compatriot Francisco Sanchez Ruiz. Both players had previously competed at the same venue a couple of weeks ago when they competed in snooker’s Gibraltar Open which Sanchez Ruiz particularly impressing against world ranked snooker players.

The evening saw a comfortable win for two-time Masters champ Shane Van Boening, whilst the opening match featured former world no.1 Klenti Kaci against 1997 Masters winner Earl Strickland. The Albanian ran out a 7-2 winner but Strickland was his usual incendiary self as he bickered with the crowd and did everything he could to unsettle his opponent but ultimately undid himself.

Commented Kaci, “I enjoyed every single moment of the match. I was happy to play Earl because I have been watching him since I was very young, he was one of my inspirations.”

Earl didn’t quite see it that way, “I can’t play I guess, that’s what it is. Those guys over there were sharking me the whole time. They singled me out over there. I’d like to see them do that in golf, they’d put him in jail.

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