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2001 Admiral World Pool Championship - Semi-final - Race to 11

• 19.00 hrs
  Ralf Souquet (Ger)    bt  Chia Hsiung Lai (Tpe) 11 - 2
  Mika Immonen (Fin)  bt  Alain Martel (Can)      11 - 7

The Kaiser Through To Final

Ralf Souquet, for so long the back-bone of European pool, is through to his second World Championship final as he overcame Chia-hsiung Lai of Chinese Taipei 11 - 2 in front of a full-house at the Cardiff International Arena.
Ralf previously won this title in Borlange, Sweden in 1996 when he overcame Tom Storm 11 - 1 to bank a cheque for $13,500. Tomorrow's rewards show the strides that the sport is making with $65,000 on offer to the winner and $30,000 available for the loser. He faces either Mika Immonen or Canada's Alain Martel in the championship match.

Souquet played the kind of game that saw him through against Chin-shung Yang in the last 16 and Marcus Chamat in the quarterfinals as he employed the highly-successful 'soft-break'  and ran some nicely set layouts to go into a 4 - 0 lead.
Lai then got two racks back but that was his last meaningful contribution to the match as Ralf took the next seven racks in fine style to take the match.

Commented Ralf, " It's not easy to be out there in the arena and play your best all the time but I think over the years, I've mastered playing on the TV tables.
" I feel really comfortable here in Wales, I like the Matchroom set-up and the way they do the tournaments for players.
" To win the World Championship once is OK but to win it twice is very difficult to do. It is my dream and means a lot to me.
" He didn't do too many things wrong but he made it easy for me with one or two crucial mistakes that let me in. No match is easy but when you win two potentially long matches 11-1 and 11-2 you save your energy for the next day."

Souquet has won his last three matches 11 - 2, 11 - 1 and 11 - 3 and he will be a very hard man to beat tomorrow night.

Mika v Ralf for the 2001 Admiral World Pool Championship

The magnificent Admiral World Championship trophy will be held aloft a tomorrow night by a European for the first time since 1996 as Finland's Mika Immonen and Ralf Souquet of Germany contest the race to 17 championship match at the Cardiff International Arena.

In tonight's second semi-final Immonen, the London-born Iceman, overcame the unorthodox skill of Montreal's Alain Martel by a 11 - 7 margin after going 5 - 2 behind after some tense opening exchanges.

The Dancing Bear's highly unusual cueing action and expressive body movement have made him a big hit with crowds at the CIA but it proved to be his downfall as he let the relentless Immonen in with the score at 7 - 5 to Martel.

Immonen then reeled off the next six racks to take the match out of Martel's hands. It has been a fantastic 12 months for Immonen with regular success in the United States now capped by his first World final.
" It was hard at times out there. There is a good guy and a bad guy battling away in your head and the bad guy is telling you to call it a day. At 7 - 5 down though I thought that I've come too far to give up now. I knew that even if he let me see just one ball I'd get in and dominate.
"He persisted with the hard break which worked well for him in the beginning but I always felt that he had no real control with it and needed to get lucky to make balls off the break.  I favoured control and once I got in I was able to maintain it.
" Alain is a very unorthodox player and I thought that his patterns weren't so good tonight. There was a lot of pressure out there and I just concentrated on basic technique to relieve that.
" I'm not thinking about the money or anything like that. It has always been one match at a time and now there's only one to go. I need to calm down now and relax and get a good night's sleep. I'll have half-an-hour on the practice table tomorrow just to warm myself up.
" The way it's gone, I don't really care who I play. Me and Ralf have got a lot of respect for each other and he is  a real gentleman. We'll both be concentrating on our respective games and not worry about each other."

Tomorrow's payout is $65,000 to the victor and $30,000 to the runner-up.

2001 Admiral World Pool Championship - Final - Race to 17

14.00 hrs
Ralf Souquet 1 - 0 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 1 - 1 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 2 - 1 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 2 - 2 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 3 - 2 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 4 - 2 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 4 - 3 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 4 - 4 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 5 - 4 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 5 - 5 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 5 - 6 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 5 - 7 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 6 - 7 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 6 - 8 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 6 - 9 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 6 - 10 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 7 - 10 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 7 - 11 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 8 - 11 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 9 - 11 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 10 - 11 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 10 - 12 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 10 - 13 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 10 - 14 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 10 - 15 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 10 - 16 Mika Immonen
Ralf Souquet 10 - 17 Mika Immonen

Ralf Souquet (Ger) v Mika Immonen (Fin)  10 - 17

Immonen Takes World Crown

After 511 matches over nine days Mika Immonen, the London-born Finn, is the new Champion of the World, as he overcame Ralf 'the Kaiser'Souquet of Germany by 17 - 10 in front of a packed house at the Cardiff International Arena to claim the title of 2001 Admiral World Pool Champion.

128 players came to Cardiff seeking glory and the game's top prize of $65,000 but in the end it was just one man who stood alone, atop of the pile.

28 year-old Immonen, who now lives in New York, played the kind of dominant pool that saw him come through knock-out matches against the likes of Corey Deuel, Tony Drago, Anthony Ginn, Niels Feijen and Alain Martel.

Ralf took the better of the early exchanges as he moved into an early 4 - 2 lead but a careless mistake saw Mika move into gear and take the next  three to go 5 - 4. Ralf took the next but Immonen then edged ahead and things looked ominous with the score at 11 - 7.

Souquet, though is renowned throughout the pool world for his resilience and he dug deep and won the next three to put the match in the balance at 11 - 10 to Immonen.

That was the Kaiser's last stand, though. He made another rare mistake and let Immonen back to the table and at 16 - 10 up the Iceman found himself breaking in what would be the ultimate rack of the championship match.

Immonen dropped the 3-ball off the break but with the 1-ball unavailable to pocket, Mika laid it off to the rail leaving Ralf a tricky kick shot. It was almost a great recovery by the Kaiser but the cue ball over ran by an inch, and that was all the Immonen needed.

When the 9-ball dropped the CIA crowd erupted as the emotion of the occasion got to Immonen and tears of joy began to flow. 
An emotional Mika said immediately afterwards." My motto is never say never. Five years ago I thought that I would win the world championship before I was 30 so at 28 I have accomplished my dream.

" When I came to the final rack I was so nervous I thought I was going to puke but I gathered myself and thought what's three balls after the thousands I've potted all week?

Souquet, who won this trophy in 1996 was understandably gutted to fall at the final hurdle; "I just couldn't get going. Even when I was two racks up early on I never thought I could win it. Mika played well and he's a true champion but I made two terrible mistakes which ultimately cost me seven or eight racks.

" The worst part was the waiting today. I just didn't know what to do. I went for a walk for a couple of hours but basically I spent my time sitting in a room doing nothing. I practised for about 25 minutes prior to the match and I felt very comfortable and wasn't even nervous but that was blown away.

" Mika broke well and had the roll and I think that he is worthy world champion and good for the game."

After winning European championships and Euro-Tour events Immonen moved to New York City a year ago and has had plenty of success State-side winning the ESPN 7-Ball Shoot Out and the Turning Stone Casino Classic but this is by far and away the biggest win of his career.

Immonen displays over the nine days of the 2001 World Pool Championship showed an ice-cool nerve under pressure. Commented Immonen, " During the match I was telling myself not to think about what is happening here, that it's just a game of pool, not the World Championship. I focused on my techniques and tried to visualise patterns to take the pressure off.

"I was really confident about my game throughout the week. I'd been away on holiday to Cancun for a week prior to the championship and practiced solidly for ten days leading up to this week. Once I discovered how to break the balls I knew I could out run any of these guys.

" This is definitely going to get a lot of attention in Finland. It's a relatively new game there and I am the first generation of pool players back home and I think my success here will make the game bigger and bigger. 

" I hope that finish TV will be picking up on this as well as Mosconi Cup because this game can only get bigger and bigger.

Immonen plans to invest most of his winnings and taking his girlfriend Helen on a getaway holiday.