Van Hove wins European Amateur Championship
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by user Alex Holowczak
Kevin van Hove won the 2007 EBSA European Snooker Championship in County Wicklow, Ireland today, after beating home favourite Rodney Goggins 7-2 in the final.
The tournament is the leading amateur event in Europe. At it's beginning last week, 64 players from all over Europe took part in 8 round robin groups of 8 best of 7 matches, with the top 4 qualifying for the knockout stages. The matches were then increased to best of 9 frames, before the Semi Finals were best of 11 and the Final was best of 13 frames.
van Hove, 23, was not without luck on his way to winning the competition. In the group stage he finished top of his group winning 6 of his 7 games, his only loss coming to Irishman Robert Murphy. van Hove was in form in the knockout stages, winning 5-0 and 5-2 against Scots Thomas McSorley and Gary Thomson. He cruised past Irishman Brendan O'Donoghue in the next round 5-3. His Semi Final against another Irishman, Vincent Muldoon, will live long in the memory. Muldoon was favourite for victory in the whole competition. Muldoon was 5-3 up, before van Hove won the last three frames to win the match 6-5 and advance to the Final. He then met another Irishman, Rodney Goggins. van Hove was dominant throughout, and completed a 7-2 win with great ease.
van Hove wins the title of European Champion. More importantly though, he earns a place on the Professional Main Tour next season, along with his co-finalist Goggins. Muldoon defeated Bjorn Haneveer, a strong favourite for the competition, 5-3 in the third place playoff, to earn the third spot on next seasons tour.
It was a strong tournament for the Irish. With Goggins and Muldoon following David Morris into the professional ranks last season, there will now be 7 Irish professionals next season. There are many more ready to follow them, including O'Donoughue, Martin McCrudden and Tom Gleeson were all Quarter Finalists. Either that, or home advantage went too far!
There were other good performances from the Belgians, Haneveer, van Hove and also Yvan van Velthoven. It's hoped that that will encourage more Belgians into the game. Lasse Munstermann led a strong German contingent, reaching the last 8 along with Sascha Lippe making the last 16. Itaro Santos led the others.
Defending champion Alex Borg was disappointing. He struggled in the group stage and lost 5-3 to Welshman David Mills in the last 32. Simon Zammit restored some Maltese pride with his performance. The big disappointment was Michael White. Whilst he may still make it onto next year's tour through other ways, White was the big favourite for the competition. But he lost 5-4 to Munstermann in the last 32. White is still young however, and will no doubt be a good professional in years to come. He can take some consolation in the fact he made the highest break of the competition, a 141. He also made a 136 break, the second highest of the competition. There was a worrying absence of Englishmen in the tournament - none made the last 16. Jordan Brown of Northern Ireland will also improve in future. He like White crumbled in the knockout stages. Stefan Mazrocis, a former English professional now representing his native Netherlands (it makes it easier for him to get into these tournaments... bless...) could only make the last 32.
The tournament results can be viewed here. Thanks to False Prophet last night, who filled in the group stages whilst I added the knockout bit. He also made all the links blue, a job normally reserved for other users. But thanks nonetheless, we now have profiles for Kevin van Hove and Bjorn Haneveer. I hope to do Alex Borg's to the same standard over the next month or so, as well as improve the quality of the current professional players. If anyone would like to help with that (in what will only be a copy and paste job from wikipedia), then please let me know, either by comment or talk page note.
