Two new European Champions were crowned today at the European Billiards Championships in Brandenburg an der Havel/Germany. Xavier Grettilat from Switzerland won the Balkline 47/2-event with a clear score of 250:0 after two innings against Willy Gerimont from France.
After the first inning the score was only 1:0 but then Grettilat started this absolutely amazing run of 249 points. His French opponent also had another chance due to the rule that every player has to have the same amount of innings, but Gerimont failed making the opening shot.
The 5-pins national teams-tournament ended today with another win for the Italians. Their opponents from Germany wanted to reach the relay which is only possible when the score is 2:1 in favour of one team, they needed a win in either one of the two singles or in the doubles. Toni Rosenberg, who usually plays in the singles, switched to doubles whilst Marco Berner played the single match. Germany was hoping to make the necessary point in the doubles but didn’t do well. The only player that had a chance to score was Thomas Hähne, but when it came to the end of the match he made a foul which put the game into the hands of the Azzurri.
Team Italy showed its superiority once more as they did not need the relay to decide the match. Michelangelo Aniello and Andrea Quarta played in the singles while Matteo Gualemi and Daniel Ricardo Lopez won all their doubles.
The one-cushion competition is now underway. 24 players are divided into eight groups and only the winner will advance to the quarterfinal. Up to now only one match is played in each group. Sam van Etten from the Netherlands made a run of 100 points in the second inning to win his match against Bernard Baudoin (France) by a score of 100:12.
Two of three group matches were played in the Biathlon-event for players under 21 years of age. The highlight of the day was the match between Italy and Germany 1 which could be a possible final. After the 3-cushions players, the score was 100:56 in favor of Italy but then it was Germany‘s Max Gabel, who played brilliantly in 5-pins. He managed to level the score within minutes and finally beat the newly crowned European champion Riccardo Matino.
Germany has two victories and should reach the semi-finals. It’s possible that they will face the second German team as they are playing for second place in their group this Tuesday evening. In this group France has also two wins and will surely reach the round of 4.
The group stage of the club team event in 3-cushions is almost finished now. In total 32 teams played in eight groups and the first two of each group will make it to the round of last 16. The turkish duo from Hemsin Spor Kulübü with Omar Karakurt and Serdar Bas played some impressive matches so you can count them as one of the favorites. From the host nation the BC Frankfurt-Nied also advanced to the round of 16.
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