World Cup of Pool in Rotterdam/Netherlands

The World Cup of Pool, which was held in the Dutch „Outland Club“ in Rotterdam, is a team event where the best 32 teams of the world fight for the title. This TV event, which was taped for a worldwide coverage, was played with two players per team in the discipline 9 Ball with alternating shot.

Billard Queen Jasmin Ouschan, which was the first woman ever nominated for this event, and 28 year old Martin Kempter from Vorarlberg represented Team Austria.

Both players didn´t have many experiences with a team competition and only had a 1:4 quote against Team Vietnam in the first round. But both Austrians showed strong billiard from the early beginning and simply crushed Vietnam with 8:1.

„That was a great first match and considering that this was the first time we played together it surprised me how good we harmonized. We were able to put a lot of pressure on Team Vietnam and used all the chances we got. The victory and the end result were really clear and if we keep on playing like that we might have a chance to beat other good nations. The aggressive style of my partner and my international experience is obviously a good combination. Of course it is funny to play in the team, since I am normally always alone on the table, but it is an interesting experience and is a lot of fun when it is like that.”

In the last 16 Team Austria faced the Team from Belgium. The playing partner from Ouschan said as follows about the opponents,”we can´t expect the match go like the one against Vietnam. Belgium beat the strong Team Holland clearly with 8:3 and so we have to expect a tough match. But if we can play like before we have a huge chance to beat them.”

The match against Belgium was a tight match and Team Austria were always behind until the score of 6:6. At this score the unseeded team from Austria played two great safeties and forced Belgium to make fouls which led to a 7:6 lead for Austria. On top of that the Austrians simply gave Belgium no more chances in game 14 and managed to advance into the next round with a 8:6 victory.

„It was as we expected a very tough and tight match but we were strong, kept our focus and secured our ticket into the quarterfinal. Belgium was after the amazing victory over Holland probably the favorites but we didn´t let ourselves get influenced by that. The position play was maybe not perfect but our shot making ability was even better and that showed that we have a lot of potential even though we were not playing as in the first match,” said Ouschan after the match and Kempter added:   ”In the first moment you could think that we were actually playing in Belgium when you looked at all the Belgium fans. But we hold our red-white-red colours high in the air and I lose a little bit of the pressure now since we made it into the quarterfinal. Our next opponent is going to be either Croatia or the USA and to be honest I would love to play against the Americans – this could probably be the necessary extra motivation!”

After a day off for the Austrian Team the wish of Kempter playing against the USA with Shane van Boening and Rodney Morris came true.

In a very exciting match none of the teams could take a lead. At the score of 7:7 Team Austria made a break mistake which the Americans used for their advantage. First they run out to go 8:7 before they managed to run out also the last game to enter the semi final.

„It is really bad, because we were so close to beat them. Our performance was okay but the Americans had a few lucky situations this time which we didn´t have. But the 5^th place is a big success for the red-white-red billiard world” said Ouschan and Kempter added: “Of course a victory would have been just perfect but it wasn´t supposed to be today. We both can be satisfied with the great result and since we adjusted so well to each other we will come back next year to hopefully improve our result – I think everybody saw that we are capable of that!”

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