WPA World Team Championship
& BILLIARD EXHIBITION 2010
Hannover Exhibition Center
Hannover Fair Ground
Hall 13
Hannover
Germany
www.wtc-2010.com
www.cueball-vision.de
www.wpapoolonline.com
www.touch-magazine.net
appb.markus-hofstaetter.at
Tournament: 30 January - 2 February 2010
Exhibition: 3 - 7 February 2010
All photos © Markus Hofstätter/Touch Magazine - used by Pro9 with express permission.
WPA WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP |
HANNOVER - GERMANY |
THE SEMI-FINALS |
| Team Philippines |  | beat |  | Team Russia |
| Team Great Britain |  | beat |  | Team Greece |
WPA WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP |
HANNOVER - GERMANY |
THE FINAL |
| Team Great Britain | | beat | | Team Philippines |
Day Nine of the World Team Championships
It's all about Great Britain!
In the final of the first World Team Championships in Hannover, Germany the squad with illustrious players like Darren Appleton and Daryl Peach beat the Philippines with a clear and unexpected 4:1 result.
At the beginning in the 8-Ball doubles it looked like the Asian team had everything under control. Dennis Orcollo and Warren Kiamco had no problems prevailing over Karl Boyes and Daryl Peach with an easy 6:1 win, but only a few moments later the British pairing of Darren Appleton and Mark Gray came back to beat Ronnie Alcano and Marlon Manalo with the same scoreline.
Whilst the 9-Ball singles match of Karl Boyes against Lee van Corteza was very close the other one between Mark Gray against Antonio Lining was already over after just 45 minutes. Gray made no mistakes and took all his chances. 8:2 was the final result.
In comparison, we saw a big fight at the other table, and when the score reached 7:6 in faour of the Filipino there was a one hour break for the final show of the fair that was taking place in the same hall the whole week.
Fortunately Boyes seemed to have no problems with that and after the re-start he took all his chances whilst van Corteza made a quite easy mistake. That was good enough for the young Britain to win his match 8:7 moving the overall score to 3:1.
So only one more point was needed to win the premiere event of the World Team Championships.
Darren Appleton had to play the unbeaten Dennis Orcullo, and Daryl Peach met Ronnie Alcano on the second table. Former World Champion Appleton was unbelievable in his match. He made absolutely no mistakes - every position was perfect, so that in the end every shot was easy. That's what we call "Perfect Pool." Orcollo had never a real chance and at the same time he was a little bit unhappy about his break. So Darren was in kind of a flow and potted the final ball only a few moments later.
It was WPA President Ian Anderson who handed over the big trophy to the celebrating team. The 600 spectators gave standing ovations to all the players who really deserved it.
We saw nine days of great Pool and lots of action. In particular, the "Shoot-Out" was something really new and thrilling, and all the teams, regardless of winner or loser, liked it very much - and it's the same with the audience too!
"Read More..." for further details.
Day Eight of the World Team Championships
All photos © Markus Hofstätter/Touch Magazine - used by Pro9 with express permission.
The final teams of the first World Team Championships in Hannover, Germany has been determined.
In the first semi-final it was Team Philippines who played against the young-guns from Russia, and it was the Juniors World Champion Ruslan Chinakov and his partner Roman Pruchay who secured the first point for Russia by winning the 8-Ball double against Ronnie Alcano and Dennis Orcullo. However just a few minutes later the score was tied as Marlon Manalo and Warren Kiamco beat Konstantin Stepanov and Egor Plishkin.
The 9-Ball singles saw easy wins by the Phillipines as well as the 10-Ball match between Alcano and Chinakov. So with a final result of 4:1 the Asian team made it to the finals.
There the opponents will be Great Britain. The quintet with the two World Champions of Daryl Peach and Darren Appleton had to deal with the surprising team from Greece, and after the doubles where both of the teams made one point it looked again like a close match. Remember that the UK yesterday had that unbelievable Shoot-Out against China and the day before it was Greece who kicked out the USA with a 13:11 score in a very exciting Shoot-Out.
Nevertheless, in 9-Ball the guys from the UK changed into third gear and celebrated two wins to make it 3:1. So just one more point was needed.
In 10-Ball it was Peach who failed so the score was 3:2 and Darren Appleton's match became the decider. The former World Champion took early advantage over Evangelos Vettas and was always 2 or 3 games ahead. After an overall time of 4 hours Darren finally potted the last ten-ball to take Team Great Britain to the final.
Day Seven of the World Team Championships
All photos © Markus Hofstätter/Touch Magazine - used by Pro9 with express permission.
It'p's still a great show here at the World Team Championship in Hannover, Germany. On day seven the quarterfinals took place. In the focus of the spectators was of course the team from Germany 2 which had a great fight against the young-guns from Russia.
After the first double and the first 9-Ball-singles the score was tied as Oliver Ortmann failed to give his team mate position for the deciding 8 to make it 2:1 for Germany. Dominic Jentsch missed and Russia had an easy layout to win the game.
Germany seemed to be a little shocked about that. Neither Ortmann nor Jentsch and also John Blacklaw played on their best level so Konstantin Stepanov and Ruslan Chinahov had more or less no problems to mark the third and fourth point. So Russia went through to the semis.
The Philippines also entered the round of the last 4 teams. The match against the Polish team was quite close but Dennis Orcullo decided the match with a 7:3 in 10-Ball over Radoslav Babica.
The Greek team with Evangelos Vettas is still on cloud nine. After the thrilling win over the US-Boys in the last 16 it was now Switzerland who was chanceless. Only one match was close whilst the other three have been easy wins for the guys from Greece. 4:0 was the final result.
The highlight of the day was without doubt China against Great Britain. In the deciding match it was former World Champ Darren Appleton who fought back after being down 2:6 in the final and deciding match against Liu Haitao. In the last rack very strange things happened. Appleton scratched on the six very unlucky but Liu also scratched right away from Ball in Hand !!
So we saw yet another Shoot-Out in the Hannover Pool-Arena. And this Shoot-Out was by far the best and exciting Pool action that took place this week. Normally it is a race to six bit this time it was a race to 27 !
One team must at least be two points ahead and this finally happened after more than half an hour of shooting. It was 9-Ball world champ Daryl Peach who secured the place in the semis for him and his friends from the UK.
Day Six of the World Team Championships
USA Out ! Germany Out ! Two of the biggest favourites fell on the sixth day of the World Pool Championship.
Whilst Germany was eliminated by the British squad with a clear 4:0 victory, the match between the US-Boys and the outsiders from Greece was one of the most exiting that took place yet. Greece was ahead 3:1 as Johnny Archer and Shane van Boening tied the score in two close matches. The Shoot-Out was the longest of the WTC yet. After overall around 50 tries and twenty strikes it was the Greek Team that finally made two in a row while Oscar Dominguez failed. The final score was 12:10 and the team from Greece showed the world that the USA can indeed be beaten.
The hopes of the host country of Germany now rests with the second team. In a seven hour fight the Ortmann Army beat the Swedish tre-kroners in a dramatic shoot-out. Thomas Luettich was the man of the match as he scored the deciding eighth point to make it 8:6. Around five hundred spectators went mad and it was a bit like the Mosconi-Cup-feeling.
Poland and the Russian troop are the teams in the hot seat. Poland eliminated Finland with the Iceman Mika Immonen 4:0 and Russia was in control of the Danish dynamite. These young teams from eastern Europe are tough and very difficult to beat!
Also in the quarter finals are China (4:1 over Serbia) and the surprising team of Switzerland. European straight pool champion Dimitri Jungo and his friends overrun Japan with 4:1 result.
WPA WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP |
HANNOVER - GERMANY |
THE SEMI-FINALS |
| Team Philippines | | beat | | Team Russia |
| Team Great Britain | | beat | | Team Greece |
WPA WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP |
HANNOVER - GERMANY |
THE FINAL |
| Team Great Britain | | beat | | Team Philippines |
WPA WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP |
HANNOVER - GERMANY |
THE PRIZE FUND |
1st | $ 75,000 x 1 |
2nd | $ 37,500 x 1 |
3rd-4th | $ 22,500 x 2 |
5th-8th | $ 11,250 x 4 |
9th-16th | $ 7,500 x 8 |
17th-24th | $ 4,500 x 8 |
| TOTAL PRIZE FUND = US $298,500 |
The tables and bleachers of the arena await the arrival of the players in Hannover.
All photos © Markus Hofstätter/Touch Magazine - used by Pro9 with express permission.
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