Norwegian 9 Ball Challenge

The norwegian 9 Ball Challenge took place in Oslo, the capital city of Norway. It was a strong field with top european players like Oliver Ortmann, Niels Feijen, Marcus Chamat, Tony Drago and Raj Hundal. The Snooker Worldchampion, Ronnie O´sullivan, was also invited to this tournament but had to cancel it a couple of hours before it started because of an ear infection. The format during the first two days  was Round Robin in groups of 8 players by a race to 5 with alternate break. 4 players of each group will qualify fo the finalround of the last 64.

My first groupmatch was against Martin Correia from Portugal. I had a good start but the longer I played the more mistakes I made and by a race to 5 you shouldn´t make a lot of mistakes. I lost my focus and that cost me the match. I lost with 5:3. The next match was on the TV table against Joakim Haugen from Norway. Betandwin broadcasted all the TV table matches live on the internet. I was able to easily adjust on the table conditions which was a big advantage. I had a good break and could gain a quick 3:0 lead. At the score of 4:1 I misscued on the 8 which made me lose one more game. I stayed focused and concentrated and ran out the next game. I won with 5:2. In the next match I faced Said Alavinasb from Norway. I continued my good match from before and took a rapid 3:0 lead again. I lost my rythm in the middle of the match but I managed to win 5:3. My last match on this was against the leading player in our group, Vesa-Ville Virtanen from Finland. I don´t really know what went wrong in this match. He ran out his first game and I didn´t get postion after my break. I had to play a safty but I couldn´t take advantage of it. Two 9 combinations followed and all of sudden I was 3:0 behind. I was not quiet with it and couldn´t find my stroke. After a short time I lost 5:0. I thought I was in the wrong movie but the good thing was that this was kind of a wake up call for me. On the next day I played Mahmut Mutto from Sweden. Since Ronnie O´sullivan didn´t come we only were 7 players in the group so each us had to play 6 matches. I knew I have to win my last two matches to enter the finalround. The match against Mutto started very well for both of us. When Mutto made his first mistake I took the chance with wide open arms. I made good use of my opportunities and won my third match in this group. I only had one more match to go and that was against Mubarak Al-Junaibi from the united arabic emirates. At the beginning the match went back and forward. Even though I didn´t play on my highest level I easily won 5:2. With this last victory  I entered the finalround. I had one more match on this day. I faced Bernd Lind from Sweden. We were both very careful at the beginning so we played a lot of safty. He was a tough player to play against so I had a few problems till the score of 4:4.  I finally took the lead and didn´t give it away. I won 9:6 over Lind. My next opponent was not unknown. It was Mahmut Mutto again. We started out really good and we brought through all of our breaks. One little mistake of Mutto in game number 9 was the turning point. I was two games ahead of him and was controlling the table. All of a sudden he had two 9 ball breaks in a row and came closer again. Even though it got exciting again I kept a clear mind and kicked him out of a tournament with 9:7. The draw made me play against a young swedish guy who played very good the whole tournament. I crushed with 9:2. In the quartefinal I played the current number 1 in Holland before Feijen,Van den Berg and Lely, Brian Beckers. I knew it will be a tough match. I had a good head start and played flawless pool. At the score of 5:1 I lost my rythm and gave him chances to catch up. But I fought back into the match and it got to be 8:8. He had the break which was a big advantage on these tables. That was the end for me. He ran out and I lost 9:8. It was a very good tournament for me even though I lost 9:8 in the end. I didn´t start really well but my level got higher and higher during the tournament and that was very important for me.

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