The WPA World Junior 9-Ball Championships gets underway in Moscow
For the first time ever Moscow, Russia has become the capital of pool world and will remain so during coming week.
Young pool players from all over the world arrived to Russia, including some very distant parts like Curaçao and Bonaire. These are the islands in the Caribbean, the former being small enough and the latter even tinier, 40 by 11 km by size. Still youngsters not only play pool there but are are solid players enough to represent the region (Confederación Panamericana de Billar, CPB) at the highest level. Ironically, the electronic draw picked the representatives of those neighbor islands to play one another in the first round already.
Overall Moscow welcomes 68 players from 22 countries this year, and teams with most players are the hosts (who also won three qualification spots of six available) and team USA, 13 players each. Next there are South Africa with six representatives. Surprisingly, the Chinese players who are usually a dominant power at junior level are totally absent this time. (Last year in Shanghai China won two of three gold medals.)
There are notable favorites in all of three divisions, Girls, Boys U17 and U19. Like the Russian star Kristina Tkach who is dominating junior pool scene in Europe. Or April Larson of USA, the best of American girls for quite a while. Both made it past the first round, yet Larson was pushed all the way by the Ukrainian qualifier Daria Siranchuk (hill-hill win to Larson).
Both U17 division European stars Wiktor Zielinski and Sanjin Pehlivanovic are on the winners' bracket after Day 1, and strong Mustafa Alnar of North Cyprus is also through with a win.
In U19 the EPBF representation is even more powerful, with junior European title holders Patrick Hofmann and Kevin Schiller (both of Germany), Jan van Lierop (Netherlands) and Fedor Gorst (Russia). Gorst has been drawn to face last year's runner-up Temuujin Enkhbold (Mongolia) who advanced from Round 1 with 9-7 victory over his opponent from Japan Kouki Sugayama. But Gorst made quick work of the Mongolian star and handed him defeat 9-3. It's now Gorst or Hoffmann to advance to single elimination and the other to fall to B side of the brackets.
Online brackets:
Girls U19 - http://tournamentservice.net/tournament.php?chart=24277
Boys U17 - http://tournamentservice.net/tournament.php?chart=24276
Boys U19 - http://tournamentservice.net/tournament.php?chart=24275
Live stream is available from 8 tables. Look for a video camera symbol on the bracket (or "Results" tab) for the particular match video. Or browse for archived records at Moscow Billiard Sports Union YouTube page.
Another handy source of live results and videos is billiard.su where all the info is also gathered.