Emil-Andre Gangflot and Hubert Lopotko pulled off tremendous victories over defending champion Mickey Krause on their way to qualifying for the final 64 at the European Open Championship in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Krause had survived a scare in his opening match of the tournament against Bulgaria’s Mario Valchev, but his reign came to an abrupt end as he endured back-to-back defeats and was unable to qualify for the single elimination phase.
Norwegian youngster Gangflot beat Krause 9-5 in the winners’ qualification round to reach the last 64 unbeaten, before Poland’s Lopotko avenged his Bucharest Open final defeat in a 9-4 win – his fourth victory on the one-loss side.
Krause was accompanied by the likes of last year’s quarter-finalist Mustafa Alnar, Tyler Styer and recent Las Vegas Open winner Denis Grabe in enduring early exits, while Billy Thorpe, Bader Al-Awadhi, Ralf Souquet and Dimitri Jungo also failed to qualify.
Meanwhile, 13 of the top 16 on the world nineball rankings will feature in the single elimination phase, as the likes of top seed Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, Shane van Boening, Joshua Filler and Jayson Shaw sailed into the last 64 without breaking sweat.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s own Sanjin Pehlivanovic impressed on home soil, dropping only three racks in as many matches, while Serbia’s Aleksa Pecelj beat Petri Makkonen 9-7 in a hard-fought victory to continue his undefeated run.
Indonesia will be represented well in the last 64 as Edward Koyongian and Andri Januarta bounced back from defeats at the hands of Pijus Labutis and Shane van Boening to join Alvin Anggito in qualifying.
Austria’s Max Lechner completed a 9-7 win over Denis Grabe in a closely-contested battle in winners’ qualification, before Estonia’s Grabe was beaten by Roberto Bartol to end his campaign.
The last 64 begins on Friday morning in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Johann Chua facing Indonesia’s Koyongian in the pick of the ties. Other matches include Filler against Dimitris Loukatos and Shaw versus Finnish prodigy Riku Rompannen.
