Polish your cues for Gdynia!
A year ago it was a final 4-1 scoreline
obtained in front of Ricky Walden, that was breaking Neil Robertson's curse of
having a silverware-less period of time (the Australian had a pretty huge break
from trophies from winning the 2010 Word Open) and the "miracle"
happened during EPTC 6 Event that was held in Poland.It was for the first time that this Central European country was holding a snooker ranking event, but the tournament turned out to be a success and regarded as an inspiring one for many reasons.
This week Poland is getting ready to receive the snooker lads one more time, as the city of Gdynia is prepared to host the EPTC Event 2 from 5 until 7 of October.
And since I like to get my nose into everything that involves snooker I talked to World Snooker agent in Poland Agata Czerwińska, who was so kind to share her thoughts about last year event and the coming one as well.
Agata, how would you best describe last year EPTC? Was it everything the team has hoped for?
Last year event from Poland was a good beginning of the Polish snooker adventure. It was the biggest event ever hosted in Poland so there were high expectations.
Over three days we had about 2000 spectators. The crowd created a great atmosphere so all the players involved as well as public, enjoyed this genuine snooker festival.
I think the drawback of the event was small
promotion, so sadly not too many people knew about the event.
This year the entire snooker gang is returning to Poland for another festival of cue-crossing. I saw you've put together a lovely web-site packed with all the needed information; with only a few days that separate us from the event, what are your expectations and hopes for the second edition of the EPTC?
We tried our best to promote snooker in Tricity and Pomorskie Voivodeship, which is a new area for the game. People seem to be very enthusiastic about the event and we’re looking forward to see a crowded venue from Friday until Sunday.
Gdynia is a beautiful city and a great partner as well. It’s always nice to see the city is getting also involved into preparation and promotion of a tournament.
We hope for a longer partnership and that Gdynia Open will feature in the snooker calendar for years to come. It’s the huge step towards the promotion of snooker in Poland.
 |
| Neil Robertson id defending champion |
However, as hard as one tries to do the right thing the fate has a mind of its own and last year edition of the Polish Open is a living proof of that, says Agata.
We say ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas' but to be honest I think Warsaw will be associated with bad luck – last year there were over 10 lost cues by airline companies and players had to borrow cues from others.
Steve Davis played with the Grzegorz Biernadski (one of the two players that entered that year) cue. We waited a long time for example, for Stephen Maguire’s and Luca Brecel’s cues. However, in the end we managed to pick up David Grace's cue and bring it to him 10 minutes before his match kicked off.
Luckily this didn't seem to affect Steve Davis who went one and reached the semis of the last year's EPTC 6 event, this triggering Shaun Murphy' reaction to say "Been inspired by Steve Snooker this weekend here in Warsaw. Going to go home and practice harder than ever for the rest of the season." on his personal Twitter account.
 |
| The city Gdynia |
But the list is bigger than that, says World Snooker agent in Poland Agata, for plenty of young players will be discovered soon.
Mateusz Baranowski (15) for example, won
the Under 17 European Championship in 2011, Kamil Zubrzycki (16) and Grzegorz
Biernadski (19) spent their summer in Star Snooker
Academy and played with
top players.
Adam Stefanów (18) reached L16 on U21 World
Championships in China this year should be also taken into account as well as
the eight-year-old prodigy who made a 97 break from this line-up – he’s name is
Antoni Kowalski - you’d better remember it. He will be a World Champion!
Snooker is becoming more popular in Poland
nowadays. It’s a nice and not too expensive
way of spending time and clubs in Warsaw
for example, happen to be full from Thursday to Sunday. It's one of the best
sports taking into consideration of viewers on EuroSport, added Agata.
So, it is just true delight that I invite
you to stay tuned from this Friday on, on EuroSport of better be there live, in
Gdynia, for the second edition of the European
PTC staged in Poland,
for which the line-up features big names that you must not miss performing on
the green baize.
0 comments:
Post a Comment