Without doubt 2010 has so far been the year of Britain’s Karl Boyes, earlier in the year he picked up his first WPA World title when he won the World 8-ball Championships out in the UAE.

He has this weekend followed that result up with his first win on the EPBF Eurotour, the Ausria Open.

The win has propelled the Blackpool based cueist to the top of the European rankings, surpassing Britains Daryl Peach (also from Blackpool) by just 60 points. The rankings make very interesting reading indeed as four British players now occupy 5 of the top 4 places. Karl Boyes (1), Daryl Peach (2), Imran Majid (4) and Mark Gray (5). They are also joined by Chris Melling who has now moved into the number 8 spot.

The Austrian Open was a very interesting tournament with many of the players commenting on their Facebook pages that it is one of the most beautiful places on the circuit to play pool. Boyes did not have it all his own though as he had to come through the one-loss side to make it into the last 32 single elimination phase of the tournament.

Once into the second phase though the Brit just didn’t look back, he racked up wins against Sanchez Ruiz (ESP), Ruslan Chinakhov (RUS) and Bruno Muratore (ITA) to get him into the semi-finals.

In the semi-finals Boyes came up against one of the most improved players of the last 12 months, and good friend, Chris Melling. Melling just didn’t have enough firepower to get past Boyes and Karl stepped into the final with a 9-7 victory.

In the final Karl played Dutchman Nick van den Berg, van den Berg has not been getting the results over the last 12 months with his previous best result a quarter-final in Italy earlier this year.

Boyes though was not going to let the opportunity slip for a second time after being runner-up in his last outing in Germany. He won the match 9-6 and the points amassed have now placed him firmly at the top of the European rankings.

Quarter Finals:

Semi Finals:

Final:

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