Souquet Moves Into Last Four

Ralf Souquet closed in on his third final appearance with an 11-8 quarter-final victory against Liu Cheng-chuan of Chinese Taipei.

The German, 37, who won the competition in 1996 and was runner-up in 2001, now faces another player from Chinese Taipei in the last four - Fu Che-wei.

It looked an easy task for Souquet as he won the first six racks but then let Liu back into the competition by losing the next four to make it 6-4. But The Kaiser recovered to then move 8-4 in front and maintained his advantage throughout the rest of the match to seal his semi-final spot.

Souquet admitted he was delighted to be doing so well in the competition after losing in the group stages in Kaohsiung in 2005.

He said: "It's a great feeling to be back playing in a good event, it's a very important tournament and makes me very happy.

"The highlights were the beginning of the match and I didn't make a mistake until I was leading 6-0, but unfortunately I missed a four-ball which kept him alive.

"He won the next couple of games and came up with a break where I couldn't run out and he took advantage of that. I made a couple of errors after that and the score was 6-4, I went up 8-4 and he closed it to 8-6 so I just wanted to keep a two-rack advantage until the end of the match."

Groups Announced For IPT World Open Championships

The International Pool Tour announces the official player groupings for the IPT World Open 8-Ball Championship. The tournament starts Sunday, September 3, 2006 at 10am in Reno, Nevada at the Grand Sierra Resort.

This historic event boasts the biggest prize fund in the history of the sport. $3,000,000 is the total prize purse, and the winner of the tournament will win an historic $500,000!

Here are the official groupings:

Group 5:

Souquet, Ralf
Harriman, Danny
Basavich, Daniel
Dominguez, Ernesto
Keller, Ryan

Souquet Wins Masters Again

Ralf Souquet clinched his fifth PartyCasino.com World Pool Masters title with an 8-4 victory against Alex Pagulayan.

German Souquet has the best record of any player in this event and this success follows previous wins in 2002, 2000, 1996 and 1994.

Souquet, who is known as The Kaiser, was delighted to win the tournament. He said: “It was a hard match as expected and even though the scoreline suggests it was easy, it wasn’t.

“This performance was probably my best match in the whole event. The semi-final was ok although I didn’t feel 100 per cent comfortable but I had a good feeling now and wanted to take every chance I had.”

To make the success even more satisfying for Souquet, he was cheered on throughout the tournament by his parents Wolfgang and Sibille and his girlfriend Illy.

“That meant a lot to me,” said Souquet. “It’s the first time I have won a tournament with my girlfriend by my side. We have been together six months so she has only been to three or four competitions.

“My parents have seen me win a lot of events but it’s great when they are around and see me winning a big one. The World Pool Masters is one of the big ones and I’m really proud I could win it and that they could be part of it.”

Souquet’s win concluded an action-packed three days of competition at the Hotel Zuiderduin in Egmond aan Zee, Holland that saw 16 players battle it out in front of a sell-out crowd vying for the $20,000 first prize.