Radoslaw Babica has won another tournament of the Dynamic Billard Best of the East. This edition, the Ukraine Open 2009, took place at the Weekend Club in Kiev , featuring participants from 6 countries. Among the best four were: Dominik Zajac – 2nd place and, at the 3rd: Babken Melkonian and Wojciech Szewczyk .
Babica is a very experienced player and a winner of many titles; however, his last win at the Best of the East tournament happened as far back as 3 years ago in Bulgaria. After that, at this Series, there were no major achievements for him. But the course of this tournament was quite lucky for the European Championships many medals winner. At the Semi-final match against Babken Melkonian, he trailed 2-5 when the Armenian missed the 9ball. At the score 3-5, Melkonian had other chances but he made crucial mistakes. At 5-5 it was the Babica`s 9ball on the break. He also won the 12th frame to win that match. After this defeat Babken was really heartbroken. „… I have sighting problems, if I stay at the dark room for too long I develop blurred vision. Here, after the 9ball miss my emotions stirred and I lost…” – he said.
The final match, Babica against Zajac, quickly went to 0-2 and it looked like Babica will not rouse from his meditation. But quickly it turned to rude awakening for Zajac as Babica won the match 7-4.
It can also be said that this tournament was a great success for Wojciech Szewczyk. Still a junior player, the young boy from Warsaw sent packing, on his way to the 3rd place, few good players; among them last year`s overall ranking winner – Karol Skowerski .
The locals` favourite, the Ukrainian „Absolute” Champion, Artiom Koshevoy sent home the leader of the Russian team – Konstantin Stiepanow, but later lost to „sleepy” Babica and he finished only 9th.
The greatest surprise of the tournament was the junior „lady”, the Ukrainian Masha Denisova who advanced to the single KO stages. In groups (round robin system) she won 3 matches.
The play in groups turned out to be a total disaster for Mateusz Sniegocki, the leader of the Polish ranking 2009. Yes, it was the hardest group and yes, the player from Poznan did a reasonable job by winning 4 group matches, but it was not enough to qualify to single KO.
The most interest took the match between the Series current leader, Mariusz Skoneczny and the current runner-up B. Melkonian. The win for Skoneczny would guarantee him the overall 2009 win and the last tournament of the Series would not matter. But Melkonian fought well and by winning that match he put Skoneczny`s expectations on hold. Also, to all bookmakers` astonishment, Babica, with his win, suddenly turned out to be a strong contender for this year`s title. And so, as last year, it is all down to the last tournament of this year`s Best of the East Series, the Hungarian Open, in November.
At the award ceremony prizes were presented by the Series Director, Marcin Krzeminski and the Vice-president of UFBS, Andrey Zastrovtsev.
The host organiser was the Ukrainian Billiard Federation with the patronage of the Ukrainian Ministry of Sport. Also the sponsors were companies: Weekend , Dynamic Billard , Iwan Simonis and Aramith . All information about the tournament was broadcasted by three TV stations. On-line stream was watched by more than 500 viewers.
The referees` team consisted of: Waldemar Debski , Igor Kovtun , Tatiana Vekker and Alexandr Uzkov .
The main organizer and owner of the Tour is „Mak Marketing”, the company from Kielce, Poland.
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1/4 final |
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1/2 final |
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Final |
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Babken Melkonian |
7 |
Michał Czarnecki |
2 |
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Babken Melkonian |
5 |
Radosław Babica |
7 |
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Radosław Babica |
7 |
Artiom Koshevoy |
4 |
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Radosław Babica |
7 |
Dominik Zając |
5 |
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Dominik Zając |
7 |
Mariusz Roter |
6 |
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Dominik Zając |
7 |
Wojciech Szewczyk |
3 |
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Wojciech Szewczyk |
7 |
Karol Skowerski |
5 |
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