Holland Complete Round Two of Billiards Line-up

Holland Complete Round Two of Billiards Line-upSecond seed Holland showed their worth as they made their way into the last 16 billiard teams of the PartyPoker.com World Cup of Pool with a victory over Scotland. The Scottish side of Michael Valentine and Pat Holtz gave it a good go but a succession of clinical run outs by the Dutch pairing of Niels Feijen and Nick van den Berg, who are ranked numbers two and three in Europe respectively, was the difference.Who do you think will win? Discuss World Cup of Pool here. “We played very well,” said van den Berg. “We scratched twice on the break but that was unlucky and that was our only mistake - there were no big errors.”In front of a large crowd, both teams shared the opening racks before Holland took the third, assisted by a fluked 1/3 combination, as van den Berg and Feijen completed the run out with ease.
They then broke and ran in the fourth game to put some space between themselves and the Scots. Holtz was a little unlucky in the next as the cue ball caught the middle pocket knuckle when playing safe to leave a clear path for van den Berg and the Dutch proceeded to run out to take the score to 4-1. However, the Scots battled back to take what appeared to be a big rack in the sixth with a quality 1/5 combination from Michael Valentine setting up the run out. But the Scotsman missed a tricky cut on the 1 ball in the next and the Dutch looked imperious as they restored their three rack lead. The Scots performed well to take the next as they worked their way through the table but Holtz over ran going from eight to nine to leave Valentine a very tough cut with the cue ball too close to the 9 ball. But the big Scotsman played it perfectly to reduce the deficit to 5-3. Holtz though missed the brown seven with the rest in the next and the Dutch showed no hesitation in clearing the remaining three balls to go to 6-3. There was more woe for the Scots in the next as Holland took it with the break to leaving their opponents with an ever-rising mountain to climb. Holtz and Valentine dug deep in the next to keep their hopes alive at 7-4 but the Dutch hit their stride in the next to complete a tricky run out and get to the hill. The Scots stayed in it as they won the game from the break but the Dutch prevailed to reinforce their position of second seeds for the championship. “Unfortunately we got off to such a poor start going 4-1 down so they were very relaxed,” said Pat Holtz after the match. “They are definitely a very strong team though and have plenty of experience on these types of conditions. I think they can go all the way and it will take a very good team to stop them. Holland can look forward to a round two match up against Vietnam who won their first round match against Croatia unconvincingly.

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