Among those taking part in the next stage of the Predator Euro Tour are several Luxembourgers, including Sam Wetzel, who is not just a Luxembourg billiards player: he is the best in the country. No one has won more championship titles in recent years. The excitement is great at the prospect of presenting this sport to the Luxembourg public at the Euro Tour on home soil.
"Yes, of course, incredibly happy to be able to play on such a stage here in Luxembourg for once. I think I had done that twice before, in 2012 at my last junior European Championship and then directly afterwards at my first senior European Championship, when I played here in the country for the first time and got a taste of what it feels like to have billiards at that level here."
Through the experience he has gained on the Euro Tour in recent times, where he has already finished 17th out of 230 competitors on three occasions, and through his 9th place at the European Championship in Slovenia, he is confident about achieving similar results in May.
"We can keep up somewhere near the top. Will we win? Probably not, because we're competing against professionals. I work forty hours a week. I think it is always hard to keep up with that. But over time, you do reach the level where you can beat one of them, or even two."
A billiards player obviously cannot afford to miss too many shots. It comes down to technique and precision, but mental strength is also required to hold your own against the very best. Those are required skills for facing professional players, and Sam Wetzel has mastered them.
"I have won against world champions and European champions myself; I managed to achieve all of that. Of course, it is incredibly special at first, and I always try to see those people as normal billiards players, because I find that if you put them on a pedestal – which they have earned – you automatically make yourself worse. You want to keep up and beat them, which means you have to think that they are no different from yourself."
A tournament on home soil always brings a certain pressure with it. Sam Wetzel feels it too, but it does not stress him out.
"I like a certain amount of pressure, because it also helps my game. If I play without pressure, I never produce my absolute best performance. But this is, of course, a new kind of pressure, because you are at home. People are watching, because you are, after all, the strongest Luxembourgish player. That means that you automatically attract a little more attention. I just try to convert that into positive energy."
Alongside Sam Wetzel, several other Luxembourgers are also taking part alongside the elite of the billiards world.
