I managed to practice for a couple of hours the day before the tournament started but this did little to improve my confidence. I wanted to make the last 32 of course but realistically I wanted to get as many points as possible to defend my position in the rankings.

I started out ok with a close 10-8 win over Belka, Jakob. However my next match was a tough match against David Alcaide, the current 8th ranked player who had just done so well in the IPT world open. Although I went behind early on I played solid (despite missing an easy 9 ball!) for another 10-8 win Next up was another Spanish player David Alcoberro. I knew if I won this match I had a good draw to make the last 32. However the match started badly, I lost the lag and only really had 1 shot on the way to a 4:0 deficit! I somehow managed to keep grinding away and pulled the match back to 6:5 before missing another simple 9 ball to go 6:6! This without question cost me the match because my opponent was getting very nervous at this point. However at 7:5 with 3 breaks he ran out the match for the 10-5 win.

I won my next match 10-7 against Andreja Klasovic before facing Ralf Souquet one of the best players in the world who is having a fantastic year. I had only played Ralf once before in the world summit in New York City last year. I lost a tight match 11-9 but despite winning Ralf, rather strangely accused me of playing slowly, yes Ralf Souquet! I won the lag easily and won the first frame before falling behind 2:1. At this point Ralf called David Morris over because he was taking an age to rack the balls and wanted the table retapped. David refused Ralfs request much to his disappointment. At 4:4 I missed a straight 6 ball down the rail trying to pinch an angle and then missed a simple 9 ball in the next because I was still so upset with losing the previous frame! Therefore instead of 6:4 in front I was trailing by this score.

Ralf won the next two racks on his break before we had another rack incident. It was my turn for 3 breaks and I noticed two massive gaps (about 2mm) between t sets of balls. I assumed they had rolled off and tried to correct them myself. Ralph didn't seem happy with this (despite doing it himself on several of my racks) and tried to claim the rack was perfect! I let him have another go but he still left several gaps. I pointed them out but decided it wasn't worth the trouble so I broke the balls anyway. I was so disappointed with Ralf's response that I broke and ran the next 3 racks in about 5 minutes to trail 7:8. Unfortunately despite playing two perfect safeties on the 7 and 8 ball in the next two frames Ralf pulled out a long bank and a good kick to seal the win. Unbelievably at the end Ralf had more excuses, this time I was a "slow racker" and not a "slow player" anymore. This despite the fact that Ralf had complained about the rack himself and taken an age to rack many times for me. It just goes to show that not all the top players are gentlemen.

I enjoyed the match though and again proved that I can compete with the best players in the world despite only playing about half my top speed. I only dropped 15 ranking points which pretty much retained my position in the rankings. If I have a good result in Switzerland in the next event I could break into the top 32.

RESULTS

• 10:8 Belka, Jakob
• 10:8 Alcaide, David
• 5:10 Alcoberro, David
• 10:7 Klasovic, Andreja
• 7:10 Souquet, Ralf

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EPBF Results