We were flying swiss air which was a little bit pricey but the most convenient flight as it flew straight to Zurich, not far from the Euro Tour location.

We arrived in Zurich on time and we bumped into Niels Fejien and his girlfriend Katrina at the airport, we all just managed to scrape onto the next train to the venue in Freunfeld about 20 minutes from the airport.

It was a nice pool hall in a small town but unfortunately my hotel was a 30 minute drive away by shuttle, which fortunately was provided free by the venue.

I hung around for the draw but to my surprise my name had be accidentally omitted! Luckily for me it wasn't a full draw and a seeded player hadn't arrived. Therefore I got a first round bye and my first match wasn't until 3pm the following afternoon.

 I went back to my hotel early to get an early night and catch up on lost sleep in Manchester! I knew I wasn't playing great but as this was my 6th tournament I was determined to try and qualify and jump up the rankings. I had a great sleep and arrived early to sample the fabulous barbecue steak that was being cooked on the balcony.

In my first match I played ????, a decent player from Italy and I manged to do just enough to win 10:8. However I knew that I needed to hit some balls so went to a local pool hall that night with Kevin Uzzell for a few hours practice. I played a bit better even though we made the mistake of pigging out on a massive Mexican meal beforehand!

Unfortunately I had to play at 9am the next day which meant a 7am wake up for the 7:45am shuttle! Anyone that knows me will know that 7am and I just don't see eye to eye! I spent most of the night half sleeping worried about waking up late and missing my match. Nonetheless I woke up on time and after a strong coffee started my match. I was playing ????, an Afgani who now lived in France. I have to confess I didn't know much about him and I hoped for an easy match. I started off well running my first 2 racks pretty quickly after winning the lag. But then in the next rack I missed a simple 8 ball which almost cost me the match. Instead of a 3:0 lead I found myself 6:2 down and starring defeat in the face. I hadn't played too badly but my opponent had had a bit of luck in addition to running racks to reach this score, however he scratched in the next frame to let me back into the match. I took my chance and played well to win the next 7 frames in a row for a 9:6 lead. However my opponent to his credit ran the next two racks to make it 9:8 before I got the chance to close out the match the a 10-8 win.

My next match was against David Alcaide, the 8th seed who I had beaten a week ago in the previous Euro Tour. This was a big match as it was for qualification and I knew he would be out for revenge.

RESULTS

• 10:0 Walk-Over
• 10:8 MAURO Pepe
• 10:8 AZIZULLAH Hamrah
• 9:10 ALCAIDE David
• 6:10 REGLI Ronald

LINKS

EPBF Results (Group B)