Got back home Sunday morning at 5 a.m. after 9 hours drive. Didn't get a medal at this years European Championships, which was my goal. I feel dissapointed, but mostly because there are so few tournaments for women to play - atleast in Europe. Therefore, a European Championship feels like such a big tournament, where I really wanna do good. Afterwards, you have to wait a whole year for another chance.

I really practiced a lot and prepared in a lot of ways for this year... also improved luckily, for example in straight pool, where I set a new personal record of 57 balls less than 2 months ago. Also played a lot of money-matches to put myself under pressure. I actually got kind of use to it... and now I like it a lot. It's definitely more exiting that way!

Also started studying more matches on dvd and begun working with meditation. I also started to work out a couple of times a week in the fitness and I even stopped drinking soft drinks ha ha!

With other words: In my opinion, I did a lot to prepare and to improve, in different ways. At the European Championships itself, I just didn't play my level. Atleast not in all matches. In 9-ball I started good with 2 wins, then lost the match for qualification for the last 16 with 7-6. Quite dissappointing. I played really good, fast and loose, and accepted the few mistakes I made... simply because I just wanted to play. I got a chance to win 7-5, and was running a difficult table with perfect positions, but on my way to the 8-ball I hit it very thin and left myself with more angle than what I wanted. The 9-ball was laying in front of the sidepocket, and I choose to cut the 8-ball softly, which turned out to be a wrong decision. I tought that it was ok, and felt that I was gonna make the 8-ball, but because I hit it to soft, it didn't go in the pocket. On 6-6 I only got a kick-shot which I hit, but from there on my opponent ran out.

Had one more chance the day after. Had to play in the arena where the tables and cloth are different than the rest. Also, during my first game when lining up a shot, Darren Appleton lost his match on the table next to me. He apparently also lost his temper cause he hammered his cue on the table with both hands and it broke into pieces! I think everybody got shocked.

I took a little time before I went down to line up the shot again. I missed the ball and felt like I was going to faint... went to the rail to hold on to it, but only got worse. Then went outside the arena to sit down. Was quite uncomfortable and not sure why it came, but was a bit of a shock to watch it happen I guess.

I didn't play good enough and ended up loosing the match 7-5. Guess I still have some things to work on, before I can take my game to the next level. I still have faith though and I still like playing pool. Life goes on and this Thursday, I'm already going to another tournament! This time in Sweden for the Interpool Open. Back home again on Monday and Tuesday, it's on the Las Vegas. Niels is invited for the World Pool Masters and right after that, we are both competing in the Predator 10-ball tournament. My younger brother and sister are both coming to Vegas as well, so I'm really, really looking forward to to there once again!

Last update: 28-04-2009 13:21