Albin Ouschan overcame Sanjin Pehlivanovic 11-10 in a closely-contested final to win the inaugural Marina Pool Open in Modena, Italy, doubling his World Nineball Tour ranking title tally in the process.
Ouschan landed his first accolade since defeating Shane van Boening to claim last year’s European Open Pool Championship crown, coming through the 128-player field to clinch the $6,700 top prize.
The Austrian was the top seed in Modena following the late withdrawal of world number one Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, and made that known early on with emphatic wins over the UK’s Tim Singh and Italy’s Aurelio Montalbano to reach winners’ qualification.
There, world number seven Ouschan beat Bulgaria’s Spastian Spasov 9-6 to reach the single elimination phase. It was relatively dominant from him to begin with as he swept aside both fellow Austrian Daniel Guttenberger and Turkey’s Mustafa Alnar.
In the quarter-finals, Ouschan subsequently dismantled the UK’s Dean Shields, who had beaten World Championship runner-up Mohammad Soufi earlier in the tournament, before coming through a close match against Niels Feijen 9-7 to reach the final.
It was Pehlivanovic who gained the first foothold in the final, winning back-to-back racks in the alternate break format to lead 8-6 following closely-contested early exchanges, although Ouschan recovered well and emerged victorious in a deciding rack.
Pehlivanovic had defeated Labinot Markaj in both winners’ qualification and the semi-finals, while the Bosnian also came through a hill-hill affair against Damian Massey and recorded wins over Max Lechner and Ralf Souquet during his run.
Kosovo’s Markaj pulled off impressive victories over world number eleven Wiktor Zielinski, Germany’s Tobias Bongers and Spain’s Jonas Souto Comino on his way to a maiden WNT ranking semi-final.
Fabio Petroni was the last standing Italian following a 9-8 win over Elliott Sanderson in the last 32, with Italy’s number one Francesco Candela enduring defeat at the hands of Souto Comino in the same round.
The World Nineball Tour returns stateside next weekend and heads to the Super Billiards Expo at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Centre for the Diamond Open Professional Players Championship.
