Denmark’s Mickey Krause has landed his maiden ranking accolade on the World Nineball Tour in Romania, defeating Hubert Lopotko 11-7 to win the annual Mezz Bucharest Open at the IDM Club.
Krause, who reached the last 16 of the UK Open Pool Championship in May as well as the recent World Championship in Saudi Arabia, continued his sparkling form by snapping off the €10,000 top prize in Eastern Europe.
Having reached his maiden ranking semi-final at the Knight Shot Dubai Open last weekend, Krause battled back from 3-1 behind against a surprise finalist in Poland’s Lopotko to climb twelve places in the world nineball rankings and break into the top 32 for the first time.
The Dane defeated Joshua Filler’s conquerer in Germany’s Can Salim 11-5 in the semi-finals, having emerged through successive hill-hill epics against Belgium’s Cliff Castelein and Swedish teenager Walter Laikre in preceding rounds.
During an undefeated campaign that witnessed him strengthen his hopes of Mosconi Cup and Reyes Cup qualification, Krause had also beaten the 15-year-old from Sweden in the double elimination phase.
Lopotko, meanwhile, a quarter-finalist on the Euro Tour in 2008 and 2011, surprisingly manoeuvred his way through the 256-player field to reach a maiden WNT ranking final in the Romanian capital, defeating numerous household names during his run.
The 37-year-old from Poland beat former World Championship quarter-finalist Oliver Szolnoki in the semi-finals, having pulled off the monumental scalp of world number eight Wiktor Zielinski in the quarter-finals. Lopotko also came through an 11-10 epic against Fabio Petroni in the last 16 and bested Ralf Souquet in winners qualification.
Elsewhere, Filler and Zielinski, both members of the world’s top ten, endured last 32 and quarter-final exits respectively at the hands of Salim and Lopotko, while two-time winner Niels Feijen was unable to qualify for single elimination after defeats to Cliff Castelein and Denis Laszkowski.
Cristian Surdea and Babken Melkonyan were the best performing Romanian players on home soil, with the pair defeating Mika van Berkel and Yuma Dorner to reach single elimination prior to their last 32 exits.
The World Nineball Tour now takes a two-week break before heading to the Midwest Billiards Expo in Des Moines, Iowa from July 9-14. The next ranking event in Europe is the Helsinki Open in Finland from August 1-4.
