Matchroom Major Event-European Open (8-13 Aug), Fulda, Winner $30K Prizefund $200K

Yowser! Alcaide misses the nine that would have meant an 11-5 victory. Not often a good idea to give a champion an extra chance. Let's see if SVB can capitalize.
 
Mercifully, this massacre is over. The 11-7 score doesn't begin to tell how much Alcaide dominated SVB in this one.
 
I only caught the last couple racks but Shane looked bad again. He performs well under pressure about half as often as he did in his prime. He's been struggling to run fairly easy racks (for him). He doesn't look like a killer anymore.
 
Often, a player's form stay with him for a couple of weeks, i have seen that many times in snooker: the unexpected player winning this week will, at least play the final next week. It happened this tournament too: Alcaide won a minor tournament last week and his good form stays with him! Here he is, playing the final today.
Raga vs Alcaide was not an invisible final to be predicted.
 
At one point, Shane took BIH...and scratched. He had quite a few dumbfounding mistakes. Alcaide looked very strong for most of the match.

The finals should be exciting! Who would have predicted these two?
 
For 2 consecutive majors, well known favorites/ superstars crashed out failed to reach final and were outplayed and outclassed by "lesser known" top players- Players who have not won majors before like Raga, Alcaide in this event and Dang Jing Hu, Marc B in recent Spanish Open.
I like that cos it means moolah prizemoney/titles are spread amongst more of top players so more will play in the tour events(y) :ROFLMAO:

i-like-it-a-lot-jim-carrey.gif
 
For 2 consecutive majors, well known favorites/ superstars crashed out failed to reach final and were outplayed and outclassed by "lesser known" top players- Players who have not won majors before like Raga, Alcaide in this event and Dang Jing Hu, Marc B in recent Spanish Open.
I like that cos it means moolah prizemoney/titles are spread amongst more of top players so more will play in the tour events(y) :ROFLMAO:

i-like-it-a-lot-jim-carrey.gif

Guessing this final will be less sloppy than the last, as well...although the last one was entertaining, even if not great play.
 
On Matchroom.live you can watch them preparing to start the broadcast. Going through the drone footage, rehearsing their lines, getting everything in place. Interesting behind the scenes. The audience is coming in now.. The German announcer-guy is coaching them on when to cheer. They're doing pretty well after a couple of run-throughs. Their cue is "... finals of the European Open Championship."
 
Often, a player's form stay with him for a couple of weeks, i have seen that many times in snooker: the unexpected player winning this week will, at least play the final next week. It happened this tournament too: Alcaide won a minor tournament last week and his good form stays with him! Here he is, playing the final today.
Raga vs Alcaide was not an invisible final to be predicted.
No offence to Alcaide but that event he won had only 1 FR800+ player in it. Yes he was the only 800+ player :LOL:

At one point, Shane took BIH...and scratched. He had quite a few dumbfounding mistakes. Alcaide looked very strong for most of the match.

The finals should be exciting! Who would have predicted these two?
Well, someone did get one right by predicting that Raga will beat Filler :ROFLMAO:
 
The stands are packed.

I only caught the last 2 racks of the Shane Alcaide match, but the audience made a big difference. When Shane missed and they all let out a gasp, that is very much needed to make it exciting.
 
As expected, odds have Raga as favorite. But Alcaide is the steadier hand has the experience of winning high pressure Matchroom events so may spring a surprise:LOL:

final1.JPG
 
Speaking of the Shane match, I think for the first time I heard JJ call a shot wrong, unless he was faking it to make Shane look good. Shane hit the ball before the 9 (I forget if it was the 7 or 8) too fat. So instead of bouncing off the rail for a good shot on the 9, he hit it full in the face and drew back a lot instead, leaving a very hard shot on the 9. He made to get to 10-7. JJ said he might have been playing it off the corner of the side pocket, instead of saying he just hit it too fat.
 
One thing they have added is some practice time on the match table before the start. I think that's a good idea. Looks like a rack or so each.

At carom, there is a standard five minutes for each player before the start of the match.
 
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