RALF Souquet has admitted that the best team won the 2009 PartyPoker.net Mosconi Cup.

Souquet was part of the European side that suffered an 11-7 defeat to USA at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

While accepting USA deserved their success, Souquet believed careless errors from the Europe outfit proved costly.

"The important fact was that we gave so many matches away that we shouldn't have done," said Souquet.

"On day one we should've had a lead 3-2 but instead were down 4-1. We gave away the team match and also another one.

"Going into day two our plan was to win two or three out of the four which was possible but we let it slip away and only won one match. Being 7-2 down makes it tough but not impossible and on day three we should've won two more matches.

"Niels was up 4-2 against Dennis Hatch and afterwards the doubles with Darren and Thorsten we gave them away.

"The problem I had all week was playing safeties. For some reason I kept doing it until the end. When ever I had to play a safety I dogged it.

"We had our chances. The US played very well from the first day and I was surprised at the strong debut from Oscar Dominguez.

"Dennis I expected him to come strongly as he is a powerful player but Dominguez is getting better. I didn't think he would play that well but he did. They just played better than us and that's why they won.

"I'm already looking forward to next year and I guarantee we will win it next year."

European captain Alex Lely added: "We came here very motivated but from day one we felt we were swimming up stream. Today we got going but hats off the Americans they played really well.
"Oscar and Dennis played really strong and the old schoolers did well and they deserved it.

"But I'm proud of my team. We've been swimming up stream and we had to fight for it and it didn't happen for us.

"We weren't over confident and if anything being the favourites put extra heat on to us.

"Hanging around these guys is great and a lot of fun and we will be back next year in Europe."