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EUROPE STORMS BACK!
by Mike
Panozzo
It's a fight again!
The European squad used one exceptional performance and capitalized on one shaky performance to win the final two afternoon doubles matches and forge a 3-3 tie with the Americans at the 2000 Acclaim Mosconi Cup in London Friday. After falling behind 3-1 in the race-to-12 team tournament, Europe made its first move with Finland's Mika Immonen single-handedly upending the U.S.
pairing of captain Earl Strickland and Corey Deuel. With the match tied, 2-2,
Strickland jumped the cue ball off the table on his break shot.
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Nerves
and misses left Americans Jeremy Jones (left) and
Michael Coltrain glum onlookers Friday afternoon.
Photo by
Lawrence Lustig
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Immonen neatly polished off the rack, then broke and ran out to
move himself and partner Steve Davis to a 4-2 advantage. And when Strickland fouled off a
Davis safe in the ensuing game, Immonen again cleaned up the mess to give
Europe the 5-2 win.
In a repeat of Thursday's match-up, European captain Ralf Souquet and German
countryman Thomas Engert rolled past the error-prone American pair of Jeremy
Jones and Michael Coltrain. The 25-year-old Coltrain, who has yet to
successfully clear a rack, continued his struggles at the table. Blowing
successive chances with wide-open racks, Coltrain at this point appears only
even money to run out with ball-in-hand on the 9 ball.
"Coltrain certainly isn't playing well," understated Souquet, who buried the
match-winning 9 after Coltrain missed his best chance at a clearance. "But we
try not to think about that. The minute you start thinking about another
player, all you've done is take your mind off your own game. We need to just
play our game."
Team Europe will try to take its first lead of the event Friday night, when
action shifts to singles play.
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FRIDAY SINGLES SURPRISE
In somewhat of a surprise move, American captain Earl Strickland put struggling Michael Coltrain on the hot seat, pitting the 25-year-old against Sweden's Marcus Chamat in the first of three singles matches Friday night at the 2000 Mosconi Cup in London.
"Mike asked us to let him play right away," said Strickland of
Coltrain, who has yet to win a single game in the competition. "We're trying to be supportive and encourage him. I think he'll do better in singles anyway." The second match features Johnny Archer against Mika
Immonen. Steve Davis will face Jeremy Jones in the evening's final match.
"We wanted to give Marcus a chance to loosen up and shoot a little," said Souquet of his choices. "He hasn't had many chances at the table. If he didn't play tonight, he'd be going back into doubles play tomorrow still without having had a chance to shoot much." And the German's decision to hold back both himself and countryman Thomas Engert until Saturday?
"I knew the Americans would play either Archer or Strickland tonight, but not both," said
Souquet. "And I'm guessing they thought we'd do the same with Thomas and me. But I don't always do things the normal way."
The Mosconi Cup features three rounds of doubles matches. No player is allowed to play a second singles match before each of his teammates has played at least one.
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