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Austrian Albin Ouschan wins his first major title, as three players from the West reach the final four at the China Open.


Ouschan sealed his first major title with a kiss at the China Open in Shanghai.

by Mike Panozzo

Youth - and the West - was served in Shanghai!

The recent run of Asian domination in both the men's and women's divisions at the talent-laden China Open (a non-Asian player has not won since 2011) had left westerners wondering if they'd ever reach the top spots again. That question was emphatically answered (at least in the men's division) when Austria's Albin Ouschan and Canada's John Morra reached the final of the lucrative tournament at the Pudong Yuanshein Stadium in early July. That Ouschan, 24, and Morra, 26, emerged as finalists was even more surprising, given that neither player had yet to score a major win in international competition. (Morra did capture the U.S. Bar Table 8-Ball title in 2011, and the Derby City Classic 9-Ball Banks in 2012.)

In the end, it was the young Austrian who bagged the China Open title and its $40,000 payday with a solid 11-8 win.


Van den Berg didn't back into his third-place finish at the China Open.

The women's division, however, played to its customary conclusion, with just two players from the West (Britain's Kelly Fisher, tied for fifth, and Austria's Jasmin Ouschan, tied for ninth) finishing in the top 16. Korea's Ga Young Kim earned the $32,000 top prize with a convincing 9-6 victory over China's Xiao-Fang Fu in the title match.

Despite the full onslaught of Asia's top players in the men's field, solid performances from players from the West went far beyond Ouschan and Morra. Holland's Nick van den Berg was a losing semifinalist and Finland's Mika Immonen reached the quarterfinals of the final single-elimination 32-player bracket. In all, 12 players from Europe and Canada reached the final bracket of the 64-player two-stage event.

The spotlight, however, clearly belonged to Ouschan. (And, please, don't refer to him as "Jasmin's brother"!) Since joining the Euro Tour as a 17-year-old in 2007, Ouschan has steadily worked his way into the mix of top European players. His only Euro Tour win came in 2012, when he won an event in Bosnia, but he made plenty of noise last July when he reached the final of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) World 9-Ball Championship in Qatar. Ouschan lost to Holland's Niels Feijen, 13-10, but he turned more than a few heads with his impressive run to the final, which included three consecutive come-from-behind wins.

As is often the case with young players, increased expectations didn't equate to better performance, and Ouschan struggled through the second half of 2014 and into 2015, and currently ranks 10th on the Euro Tour.

It all came together for the Austrian in Shanghai, but not without moments of struggle and doubt.


Ouschan didn't like his chances, saying he'd be happy to reach the final eight.

"At the beginning of the tournament," Ouschan said later, "I told myself that I would be very happy if I could finish [tied for] ninth."

Ouschan started the initial double-elimination bracket with a 9-6 win over Chile's Jalal Yousef, but dropped his next match against 2013 China Open runner-up and 2012 WPA World 8-Ball Championship runner-up Che-Wei Fu of Taiwan, 9-8.

Needing a win to assure a spot in the final 32, Ouschan squeezed past Filipino Johann Chua, 9-7, in a match that was tied at 7-7.

Morra faced an even more daunting task in reaching the final 32, losing his opening match to Do Thekien of Vietnam, 9-5. Undaunted, the many-times Canadian national champion rattled through three matches in the losers' bracket to sneak into the single-elimination portion of the tournament. The single-elimination final 32-player line-up looked as much like a Euro Tour event as an Asian event, with eight Euro Tour regulars freckling the bracket. America-based Europeans, Immonen and Darren Appleton, also made the cut, as did Canadians Morra and Jason Klatt. The strong showing from the West surprised Ouschan.

"The players from Europe and the U.S. are always at a disadvantage in China," Ouschan commented. "The balls, cloth and tables are made in China, and nobody else knows how they play except the Chinese players." Morra concurred.


Morra made a strong run to the final, offering a glimpse of what the future holds for the young Canadian.

"The conditions aren't what the pros from the West are accustomed to," the Canadian said. "Plus, the China Open is only a 64-player invitational. Every match is a battle against a No. 1 or No. 2 player from his country. You are always under pressure." In addition to Chinese stars like Hewen Li and Jian-Bo Fu, the final 32 featured a world-beating Filipino contingent - Dennis Orcollo, Lee Vann Corteza, Carlo Biado, Warren Kiamco and Jeffrey Ignacio.

Ouschan launched his final drive to the title with an impressive 11-7 win over 19-year-old Taiwanese phenom, Ping-Chung Ko, winner of the 2014 CSI 8-Ball Invitational. He followed with an 11-9 victory over Euro Tour contemporary Mateusz Sniegocki of Poland, a match in which he trailed, 7-3. Meanwhile, Morra toppled Holland's Marc Bijsterbosch, 11-8, and beat Kiamco, 11-9, after the Filipino star missed an easy shot with a chance to tie the match, 10-10.

Immonen made waves early, topping Spain's Francisco Diaz-Pizzaro, 11-7, then dispatching Appleton, 11-7. His run ended when van den Berg posted an 11-7 win to moving into the semifinals.

Ouschan also reached the semifinals after another impressive performance, manhandling 2013 China Open winner Corteza, 11-6. "Once I reached the last 16, I played really relaxed," Ouschan admitted. "I'm not that guy who gets more nervous after every round. I started focusing on getting a medal." Morra matched Ouschan's effort with a gutsy, 11-10, win over Fu, two-time World Cup of Pool champion and 2011 World 10-Ball runnerup. Morra trailed, 10-9, but ran out to tie the match. Fu played safe at the start of the deciding game, after which Morra fluked in the 1 ball, then ran out to seal the win.

"No one got more than a two-game lead the entire match," Morra recalled. "From start to finish, it was a grind. "After that match, I felt like I was playing well enough to win the tournament. I felt like the toughest part of the tournament was over with. I felt like I could relax and play with confidence."

As surprising as Morra and Ouschan's visit to the semis was, Bing-Jie Chu's appearance was equally unlikely. The young Chinese star earned his spot after beating Estonia's Denis Grabe, 11-8, then scoring a surprisingly easy, 11-4, win over Orcollo. It wasn't Chu's first win over the Filipino juggernaut. Chu topped Orcollo in the finale of a 2014 Chinese Billiard & Snooker Association Guangzhou Open. Chu beat Vietnam's Hoang Quan Do, 11-5, to earn his spot in the final four.

In the semifinals, Chu gave Ouschan all he could handle. Ouschan found himself chasing Chu from the start, although both players put on almost flawless performances in the alternate break match. At 8-8, Chu played safe after the ensuing break, and Ouschan countered with a pair of jump shots that effectively won the match. The first was a table-length jump safe, the second a jump to pocket the object ball, gaining perfect position in the process. Another break-and-run put Ouschan on the hill, 10-8. With the pressure mounting, Chu finally made a mistake, missing the 1 ball in the next rack. Ouschan calmly ran out for the victory.

"That was my toughest match, because I was always behind and had to fight like crazy," Ouschan said later. "I was begging for him to make a mistake or not get position after the break. Finally, I got my chance, and I had to take it. After the second safety, I said to myself, 'I have to make this shot if I want to win.' I took a deep breath and made a long jump shot. It was a chance I had to take." With Ouschan's spot in the finale secure, Morra took on van den Berg. While Ouschan has battled to escape the shadow of his trophy-hogging sister, van den Berg has long toiled as Holland's second-best player behind Feijen. A win in Shanghai would have gone a long way to elevating van den Berg's standing, but Morra closed that door, clawing his way to an 11-8 victory. With the combined ages of the finalist making it the most youthful China Open finale ever, Ouschan and Morra squared off. For Morra, the match was lost in the first seven games of the race-to-11 match. A few mistakes from Morra and a fortuitous combination by Ouschan on a jump shot gave the Austrian a 5-2 lead. From there, the young guns took turns breaking and running out, which, while impressive to witness, didn't allow Morra to make up any ground. Sure enough, at 10-8, Ouschan executed a perfect break shot and carefully wove his way through the rack to secure his first major title.

"I thought it was a great final," said Ouschan. "It was tight at the start, but I was able to steal his break with a nice safety, and then I got lucky with the combination to get a 5-2 lead. From there to the end, we both ran out every rack. "I felt really good throughout the match, but got a little nervous at 10-8," he continued. "I made a perfect break and knew I had to just take my time and take some deep breaths. I struggled with position, but in the end everything was good!"

It was an unlikely - but welcome - finish for a player who just days earlier would have been happy to reach the final 16.

"Two days before, I thought it was impossible for me to reach the final eight, because I had so many problems with the tables. All of a sudden I'm in the final. When I got to the last four balls, I knew I was the China Open champion."

While disappointed in the outcome, Morra was pleased with his performance. "I couldn't have asked myself for a better performance," he said. "I went the whole match without missing a ball. The difference in the match was that he was getting more shots on the 1 after the break. I felt like I got a little unlucky, and it just wasn't my time."

In addition to the win and its $40,000 windfall, Ouschan also vaulted to the top of the standings in two of the three ranking categories, which will determine automatic spots on Team Europe for the 2015 Mosconi Cup, a bonus not lost on the new champion. "The Mosconi Cup is the most important tournament for a player in Europe," Ouschan said. "Everybody wants to play in this tournament. Everybody sees it on TV, and it is such an emotional event. Even watching it on TV, my heartbeat is faster. I would be honored to represent Europe in the Mosconi Cup."

The women's division in the China Cup featured no such surprises, with 12 of the players who advanced from the 48-player first stage to the 16-player single-elimination final bracket being from either mainland China or Taiwan. It was a quick event for Europe's best. Jasmin Ouschan drew eventual champion Kim in the opening round, and fell 9-5. Former China Open champion Fisher opened the final bracket with a decisive win over two-time World 9-ball Champion Shasha Liu, 9-2, but had the misfortune of drawing world No. 1, Siming Chen, in the second round. Chen advanced with a 9-3 victory. Kim continued her roll with a 9-6 win over Taiwan's Ho-Yun Chen, setting up a rematch of the 2014 finale against Han Yu. Yu, the 2013 World 9-Ball Champion, topped Kim, 9-5, to capture the title. The feisty Korean star turned the tables on Yu, taking advantage of Yu's inconsistent break to post an easy 9-3 victory.

The second semifinal pitted Chen against countrywoman Xiaofang Fu, who captured the WPA World 9-Ball Championship in 2010 and was runner-up in 2012. Fu, who has struggled to regain that championship form in the past two years, played a near-perfect match in dispatching Chen, 9-4. Kim and Fu traded run-outs through the first six racks of the finale, before a Kim miss allowed Fu to forge a 4-3 lead. Fu returned the favor and Kim snagged four of the next five games for a 7-5 lead. Three racks later, Kim had secured her first China Open title with a 9-6 triumph. "After seven years playing this event in Shanghai, I finally win!" Kim exclaimed after the win. "It was difficult, but I didn't give up. I tried hard to maintain my confidence."

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