By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Filipino pool superstar Johann Chua capped off his European Open 9-Ball Championship campaign with a grand final finish held at the Hotel Esperanto in Fulda, Germany.
Despite losing to Mickey Krause of Denmark during the championship stage, Chua pulled off one of his best runs in the European tour and took home a prize money of $15,000 (854,377 pesos).
Chua failed to decipher Krause’s mastery of the pool table and emerged as this year’s European champion with a score of 13-8.
The emerging star from Denmark immediately dominated from the get-go, leaving Chua behind with a commanding score of 10-3. Despite a late recovery from the Filipino bet, Krause was able to capitalize on the final four racks to bag the grand prize money of $30,000 (1,709,160 pesos).
Before reaching the championship stage, Chua looked invincible after taking down some of the tournament’s favorites including USA’s Shane Van Boening, 11-5, in the semifinal round.
Boening, the current world no. 10 ranked pool player by Matchroom, suffered a lopsided defeat after witnessing one of the greatest table runs of the tournament by Chua.
Chua was stuck in three crucial dangerous positions during his match against Boening but the Filipino found a way to get out of the hole, backstopped by his tremendous shot selection mostly done by his signature English bank spins.
In the quarterfinal round, Chua was slated against the talented Mustafa Alnar of Turkey, but he again displayed a dominant outing and defeated him with a score of 10-4.
Chua also prevailed over the likes of Wojciech Szewczyk from Poland, 10-7, in the Round of 16 and crushed the higher-ranked Ko Ping Han of Chinese Taipei in the Round of 32, 10-3.
