Brilliant Brecel In European Final
Luca Brecel produced the performance of his life to recover from a 3-1 deficit against Kristjan Helgason to book his place in the 2010 European Championship final.
Former professional Kristjan Helgason from Iceland, made all the early running, opeing a 3-1 lead helped by a run of 54 in the fourth frame. Brecel hadn’t done much wrong at that stage but it appeared as if experience might be about to win over youth.
Brecel came back after the interval with a run of 49 to close the gap and controlled the next three frames to turn his deficit into a 4-3 lead.
An run of 42 in the ninth frame by Brecel left Helgason needing a snooker, which he couldn’t get and Brecel booked his place as the youngest ever European Championship finalist.
Earlier in the event Brecel came top of his group with 7 straight wins, before beating Austria’s Andrea Ploner, Rene Van Rijsbergen from Holland and Michal Zielinski of Poland, to book his place in the semi final.
Brecel will face another former professional, Dutchman Roy Stolk, in the final.
Stolk overturned a 4-1 lead held by Israel’s Roy Fernandez, running in breaks of 52, 79 and 66 before closing out a 6-4 win with a 47 break.
The Dutchman had performed similar heroics in his last 16 match to edge out Welshman Jamie Jones in the deciding frame. And he went on to beat Ireland’s John Torpey in the quarter finals.
Fernandez, who reached the European Play Off final in 2007, knocked out defending Champion David Hogan from Ireland, in the Last 32.
He then went on to beat former pro Patrick Einsle of Germany, before ending the hopes of Kurt Maflin in the quarter finals.
Darren Morgan retained his Masters title with a 6-0 defeat of Ireland’s Joe Delaney, in a repeat of last year’s final.
Morgan had a titanic struggle against fellow Welshman Philip Williams in the semi final. Williams ran in breaks of 78 and a brilliant 135 total clearance to force the decider.
He got in first in the final frame but lost position on 33 and Morgan stepped in with a 101 clearance to seal victory.
Wendy Jans retained the Ladies title, but not before overcoming stiff opposition from Germany’s Diana Stateczny.
Jans opened the match with a 58 break, but was pegged back to 2-2. She ran in a 33 clearance to regain the lead but Stateczny countered with 32 to level again at 3-3. Jans then found her form with runs of 55 and 68 to secure a 5-3 win.
It was remarkable performance by the German girl who only turned from pool to snooker ten months ago and in March partnered Anne-Katrin Hirsch to the European Ladies Team title in Malta.
