18 Year-old Stuns Souquet

IN ANOTHER RIVIERA upset, 18 year-old World Junior Champion Ko Pin-yi performed surperbly to defeat five-times Masters champion Ralf Souquet of Germany 8-3.

Belying his youth, the confident Ko played like a seasoned veteran as he dismantled an out of sorts Souquet to advance to the quarter-finals.

“Before the match I was very excited and a bit nervous. Souquet is a very good player with a great safety game, but he didn’t play so good today,” said Ko.

“I played good today though. I had three good run outs and if I play like this tomorrow I have a chance to win the tournament,” he added.

The 18 year-old, who also won the coveted Super Cup in Taiwan at the end of 2007, raced into an early 3-0 lead before Souquet stole the fourth game. Ko though, restored his three rack lead before the World 8 Ball Champion began to claw his way back.

Some skilful safety play from Souquet gave him the seventh game on the three foul rule, as the 2 ball lay aside the 8 on the long rail.

The ‘Kaiser’ scratched off the break in the next to derail his revival and with ball in hand Ko ran out to get to 5-3 ahead. The super confident Ko ran out the next rack to surge into a 6-3 lead.

Ko needed to play safe in the next but failed to tuck the cue ball behind the orange 5. Ralf though, misjudged his own attempt at a snooker and Ko banked the 2 ball across table to set up another excellent run out to reach the hill at 7-3.

Unfortunately the Taiwanese came up dry on the break but his opponent missed the 1 ball into the centre pocket. Ko tried to kick it in but also missed before Souquet had his last shot of the match as he missed an elementary pot to give Ko a great chance.

The youngster grabbed it with both hands to run out and take the match 8-3 to set up a quarter final clash with either Tony Drago or Niels Feijen.