Germany's Sascha Lippe is the remaining continental european hope up against the superb trio from Ireland as we get down to the semi final stages of the 2009 European Championships in Antwerp.
Today's quarter finals saw the Irish lads continue thier superb form in this years event and we will now see Brendan O'Donoghue who is already main tour bound face off against fellow countyman Mario Fernandez in the semi finals tomorrow. The youngster of the group David Hogan will then play Sascha after his comprehensive 5-1 victory over Tony Drago in thier quarter final match.
Brendan reached the semi's thanks to a 5-2 win over No.1 seed David Grace while Mario ran out a 5-3 victor over another englishman, Jimmy Robertson. In what was a low scoring day all round Sascha progressed thanks to a 5-3 win against ex-champion Kristjan Helgason and must now see if he can stop an all Irish final by beating Hogan. Should Hogan manage to win the event it would see two players from the same club qualify for the main tour in the same year. Maybe that has happened in England in the past but for a small voluntary club in Southern Ireland it would be a monumental result for the club who were crowned provincial champions this year and took the All Ireland title last season, mainly thanks to both Brendan and David.
With the European's finishing this weekend it's will see the qualifying events for the main tour all complete and the nominations entered to the WSA for thier consideration. Tuesday will then see the WSA release the names for the wild cards for the coming season and with a possible three wild cards up for grabs it will be very interesting to see who gets the nod this time round.
