Europe require a three more points to secure a historic eighth consecutive triumph
Thursday 7 December 2017 15:27, UK
Team Europe closed in on an eighth consecutive Mosconi Cup victory with a convincing display against Team USA on the second day in Las Vegas.
The visitors, captained by Marcus Chamat, led 4-1 after the opening day's play and increased their advantage to 8-2 over the misfiring hosts.
Dennis Hatch and Billy Thorpe won the opening match of the day against Nick van den Berg and David Alcaide, after initially squandering a 4-1 lead, but Ralf Souquet and Alcaide secured comfortable victories in the singles to help ensure the visitors remained in control.
Chamat, whose side needs three further points to reach the finishing line, said: "The way the first match was, I was thinking if we could win two matches today I would be happy because we would still have the lead. Winning 4-1, I am way over the moon."
Hatch and Thorpe won a deciding rack to overcome Van den Berg and Alcaide to increase hopes of a comeback by the hosts but Souquet fought back from a 3-2 deficit in the second match of the day to win 5-3 over Oscar Dominguez.
Joshua Filler continued to impress on his debut Mosconi Cup appearance as the German teamed up with Jayson Shaw to ease past Shane Van Boening and Dominguez 5-1 in the third match of the day, securing the win with a combination shot of the four ball to the nine ball.
The final two matches saw Alcaide thrash Skyler Woodward 5-1 before Filler and Van den Berg raced to a 5-0 success over Van Boening and Thorpe.
"I get goose bumps just talking about Joshua," said Chamat about Filler. "When you see him play, you know he will run out and go around smiling. He makes the game look so easy. Once in a lifetime you get these players."
American captain Johan Ruijsink admitted his side "didn't look confident" and face a tough challenge to overhaul the deficit when the matches continue on Wednesday, with a schedule of four more games - two doubles and two singles.
"We are not happy," Ruijsink said. "We didn't look confident today, we broke better, I really felt that we broke better but we missed balls that we shouldn't have, and that is disappointing.
"Even the 5-4 win was not confident - we should have beaten them 5-1, 5-2. We should have put our foot on the gas pedal but we didn't and that stayed there for the whole day.
"I truly felt that we broke better and if we had played as we did yesterday we would have got more points, but we didn't. It is a learning curve and we will try to combine the better play from Monday and the break from today, but we cannot lose the day tomorrow - that is obvious."
Watch the Mosconi Cup live on Sky Sports Action between December 4-7. Can Team Europe make it eight in a row?
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