Swiss Billiards Team Dispatches USA at World Cup of Pool

Swiss Billiards Team Dispatches USA at World Cup of Pool
The USA billiard team, runners-up in the 2006 World Cup of Pool, have been eliminated from the 2007 tournament. This week’s competition in Rotterdam, Holland, has produced a number of huge upsets and a large crowd at the Outland Nightclub witnessed another as Switzerland fought back from 5-2 down to win 8-6.
The American side of Rodney Morris and Corey Deuel were hotly-fancied to win the event but were dumped out by young Swiss stars Marco Tschudi and Dimitri Jungo.
USA only just scraped into the last 16 after a hard-fought 8-7 victory against Malta in the best match of the tournament so far. The American duo of Corey Deuel and Rodney Morris were 7-4 down and had to run out four successive racks to move into the next phase.
Their opponents tonight were Switzerland (Dimitri Jungo and Marco Tschudi), who had looked unconvincing in a nervous, mistake-filled 8-5 victory over Hungary on Thursday.
With both Holland teams already eliminated from the tournament, Morris and Deuel decided to wear orange shirts, a colour normally associated with Dutch sides.
It was a scrappy opening rack as every one of the four players missed at some stage. But the crucial error came from Jungo who failed to sink the red 3 but it then got worse as the cue ball slumped into the right side pocket.
With ball-in-hand, it was a routine task for USA and a 5-9 combination from Morris gave them an early lead. Morris and Deuel, who both represented USA in the 2006 Mosconi Cup, comfortably run out the next rack for an early 2-0 lead.
However, Switzerland soon got on the scoreboard when they profited from an error from Deuel who missed an attempt at the blue 2 into the bottom left pocket.
Switzerland ran out the fourth rack to make it 2-2 and it looked like being another tight match for the second seeded Americans.
In the fifth, Tschudi laid a tough-looking safety and Deuel did well to hit the 1-ball but left it in open table as the Swiss had another chance to win a rack. But they did not take it as Tschudi dogged an effort on the brown 7 and Team America gratefully grasped to opportunity to steal the rack for a 3-2 lead.
The Europeans were back at the table in the sixth but Jungo missed a bank shot on the 1-ball before Tschudi later failed with a one-rail kick shot escape after a fine safety. That helped USA restore their two rack advantage for 4-2.
They cruised through the next to make it 5-2 and only three away from a meeting with either England or Finland in Saturday’s quarter-final.
The Americans seemed to take their foot off the accelerator with a number of sloppy shots to keep Switzerland in the match. Both Deuel and Morris passed up opportunities to down the orange 5 and that enabled Switzerland to win their third rack of the match.
It was proving to be a much tougher proposition than expected for the Americans and with the winner-break format it meant Morris and Deuel would have to stay in their seats and wait for another chance.
The ninth went all Switzerland’s way as the scoreline narrowed to 4-5, the closest it had been for the last 20 minutes.
But there was to be another twist as Switzerland inexcuseably lost position with only the 7, 8 and 9-balls left on the table in the tenth to gift America control once more and a 6-4 advantage.
It did not last long as once more the balance of the match turned in what was proving to be a thrilling encounter for a large crowd at the Outland Nightclub in Rotterdam, England.
USA lost position and again had to sit, watch and hope. They would have been sweating a bit more after Switzerland claimed the 11th rack to trail 5-6.
The Swiss team seemed revitalised and a thin cut from Tschudi to deposit the 6-ball helped set up another rack, their fourth in five, to make it 6-6. In effect, the match was now a race to two.
A huge shock was now on the cards and a faultless Swiss rack saw then run out from the break to move to the hill and only a few minutes away from a potential memorable win.
With the 1-ball going down on the break and the 2-ball over the bottom left pocket, it was within touching distance for the Swiss and they held their nerve as Dimitri Jungo sunk the final 9-ball of the match for an 8-6 triumph.