Feijen Comes Back To Earn Quarterfinal Birth

Feijen Comes Back To Earn Quarterfinal Birth
Holland’s Niels Feijen produced an impressive comeback to defeat Imran Majid and move into the quarterfinals of the 2007 PartyPoker.net World Pool Masters.
Feijen, who was backed by a large home crowd at the Hotel Zuiderduin, Egmond aan Zee, trailed 3-0 in the early stages of the match but recovered to win 8-5.
I started like a granny, admitted Feijen. Imran then let me off the hook so I could’ve been 4-1 down. The big swing came when he missed a seven-ball and I played really well from the middle to the end.
I have been struggling with my pace the whole week so this was a big relief for me. Let’s keep it going.
Majid took the lag and made a ball on the break before working his way through the table to wrap up the opener. A dry break from Feijen in the second resulted in a push out but he got back to the table to pot the 1 ball into the top pocket. He later got fortunate when he fluked the 4 ball into the same pocket.
But an unforced error from Feijen left the 2 ball on. Imran potted it and then looked composed as he ran the table out to go into a 2-0 lead.
Feijen once again made the error in the third game as a table-length safety on the 2 ball left it on for Majid. He took full advantage to clear up and increase his lead.
Three balls on the break looked to be just the confidence booster Feijen was looking for and a great positional shot appeared to have set up a rack-winning opportunity. However, he gained horrible shape on the 9 ball but saved the situation with a fine cut on the last ball.
Majid made his first mistake as he badly missed the 2 ball but Feijen ran out of position on the 8 ball. His banked shot missed to leave Imran a tough 8/9 for the game. He missed it though, as Feijen took the final two balls to reduce the deficit to 3-2.
A good break from the Dutchman seemed to set the rack up but he was too straight on the 7 ball and a loss of concentration resulted in a bad miss. Imran potted the second to last ball but scratched giving Feijen easy ball-in-hand to level the score at 3-3.
The next two went with the break to leave the match finely poised at 4-4. In the next, Imran had no shot on the opening ball and pushed out. But he failed to make his intentions plain to referee Michaela Tabb and resulted in ball-in-hand for Feijen, who grabbed the opportunity to take the lead for the first time at 5-4.
Looking confident, Feijen coasted through the next to increase his lead with his English opponent against it. Majid though, held himself together to run out the next but the momentum was with Feijen.
Looking a different player from his early tentative endeavours, he completed another easy run out to get to the hill at 7-5.
Feijen got to the table in the next but could do nothing with the situation and Majid was forced to play safe. The Dutchman though, took on a great table length bank on the 5 ball which proved to be a match winner as it set up the run out for a tremendous come-from-behind victory for Feijen.