Souquet lone European left

11th November 2006

In a tournament that started with 31 Europeans competing, Ralf Souquet of Germany now stands alone to carry the colors for Europe in the 2006 Philippines World Pool Championship in Manila.

Souquet, who won the competition in 1996, eliminated fellow European Konstantin Stepanov of Russia. But he did so in a way that suggested that he will contend for the championship. He won nine straight racks to hammer out an 11-4 victory.

The Kaiser now faces Liu Cheng-chuan of Chinese Taipei in the last eight but is not yet letting himself think about lifting the trophy again.

"I do not think about it as I'm only looking forward to the next match tomorrow," said Souquet. "I try to only think from match to match. If you start thinking what could happen in the future you may lose focus on the first step, which is the most important as you have to go step by step. Of course it would be nice after a ten-year break but I'm not thinking about it."

A shock looked on the cards when Stepanov took a 4-2 lead and it should have become 5-2 when Souquet seemed to be affected by a cheer from the main table and promptly missed a shot at the one.

But the German was handed a lifeline when Stepanov scratched while potting the red three and that was the start of Souquet's fightback. A dry break from Stepanov enabled Souquet to take the eighth rack. And from then on, it was all Souquet.

"He made two or three errors,” the Kaiser observed, “and that made a big difference as with the alternate break format two or three mistakes can be the difference of six or seven games. The quality of play has gone up so you have to play alternate break otherwise it could happen that someone just sits on their chair and doesn't get to the table at all."

Beyond Souquet’s feat, however, it was all woe for the non-Asians remaining in the tournament.

Fu Che-wei of Chinese Taipei won 11-8 over Steve Davis, the UK ’s sole remaining hope in the competition. The match was close in the early stages as they were tied up at 3-all but some mistakes from Davis allowed Fu to take three racks on the spin to pull ahead.

Fu got to 9-5 ahead as all looked lost for the Englishman but he characteristically dug deep to win three racks and get back to 9-8 down. But Fu, the 32 year-old from Ping-dong, seized the initiative to close out the last two racks for victory.

“I’ve got a bit of a cold at the moment so when I was down on the shot I felt a bit dizzy, but hopefully it will clear by tomorrow,” said Fu. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow and I hope I can be confident,” he added.

For his part, Davis said, “I was beaten by the better man on the day and although I came back towards the end it was a bit of a bridge too far.

“I’ve had a fantastic time here though. Manila is a great place and I’ve enjoyed every minute of my stay here. It really is pool crazy here and the level of talent in the competition is unreal. There are so many players unknown to me who are as good as any I’ve seen,” he added.

Another European, Sander Tot, fell to WPC first-timer Li He-wen of China 11-7. No player from China had ever entered the competition before but Li is certainly making a big impact on this edition of the WPC.

The Chinese player defeated Alex Pagulayan 8-2 in the group stages and has now recorded knock out successes against Alejandro Carvajal (Chile), Rudy Morta (Philippines) and Tot, who represents Serbia and Montenegro.

 Meanwhile, another Taiwanese player, Liu Cheng-chuan, took out Canada ’s Tyler Edey, the lone remaining player from the Americas.