The World Nine-ball Championships are held annually, and are sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association. Events have been held for boys and women, and for the main world championships since this time, with a girl's tournament being created in 2004. In 2013, the men's championship was changed from being inclusive for all [a] to a men's only event. From 2021, the main tournament became all inclusive once again, while the women's event was discontinued. In 1999, two men's tournaments were held, with one being run by the World Pool Association, held in Spain, and the other not recognised, held in Wales and known as the 1999 World Pool Championship . [1] However, both events were later recognised as official world championships for the year of 1999. [2]
The first Junior Championships played since 1992 for boys, and a girls' division played since 2004. [4]
| Year | Dates | Location | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | November 15–18 | Shanghai, China |  De Jing Kong |  Jeffrey Roda |
| 2015 | November 14–17 | Shanghai, China |  Daniel Macioł | Zheng Xiaohuai |
| 2016 | November 17–20 | Shanghai, China | Zheng Xiaohuai |  Temuujin Enkhbold |
| 2017 | Oct. 30 – Nov 2 | Moscow, Russia |  Sanjin Pehlivanovic |  Robbie Capito |
| 2018 | Oct. 31 – Nov 3 | Moscow, Russia |  Mahkeal Parris |  Emil Andre Gangflot |
| 2019 | November 21–23 | Nicosia, Cyprus |  Moritz Neuhausen | Fu Huan |
| 2021 | October 4–10 | Klagenfurt, Austria | Dominik Jastrząb |  Yannick Pongers |
| 2022 | October 19–21 | San Juan, Puerto Rico |  Karl Gnadeberg | Lang Yi Li |
| 2023 | October 19–22 | Klagenfurt, Austria |  Derin Asaku Sitorus | Adrian Prasad |
| 2024 | September 5–8 | Hamilton, New Zealand | Revo Maimre |  Walter Laikre |
| Year | Winner |
|---|---|
| 1999 | Bob Calderon |
| 2000 |  Fred Dinsmore |
| 2002 |  Jouni Tähti |
| 2003 | Henrik Larsson |
| 2004 [5] |  Chu Shou-Wei |
| 2005 [5] | Emil Schranz |
| 2007 [5] | Henrik Larsson (2) |
| 2008 [5] | Aaron Aragon |
| 2009 [5] | Jouni Tähti (2) |
| 2010 [5] | Jouni Tähti (3) |
| 2011 [5] | Jouni Tähti (4) |
| 2012 [5] | Henrik Larsson (3) |
| 2013 [5] | Jouni Tähti (5) |
| 2014 [5] | Henrik Larsson (4) |
| 2016 [5] | Henrik Larsson (5) |
| 2017 [5] | Fred Dinsmore (2) |
Nine-ball is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick, players must strike the white cue ball to pocket nine colored billiard balls, hitting them in ascending numerical order. An individual game is won by the player pocketing the 9 ball. Matches are usually played as a race to a set number of racks, with the player who reaches the set number winning the match.
Efren Manalang Reyes, popularly known by the nicknames "Bata" and "the Magician", is a Filipino professional pool player, who is widely regarded as the greatest pool player of all time, and especially famed for his skill at the challenging one-pocket discipline. In 2003, he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.
The Billiard Congress of America (BCA) is the governing body for cue sports in the United States and Canada, and the regional member organization of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). It was established under this name in 1948 as a non-profit trade organization in order to promote the sport and organize its players via tournaments at various levels. The BCA is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The voting members of the organization are mostly equipment manufacturers.
Pool is a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the rails, into which balls are shot. Of the many different pool games, the most popular include: eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank pool. Eight-ball is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and it is often thought of as synonymous with "pool".
Jeanette Lee is an American professional pool player. She was nicknamed the Black Widow because, in spite of her sweet demeanor, she would "eat people alive" when she got to a pool table and always wear black when playing pool.
Francisco Bustamante is a Filipino professional pool player from Tarlac, Central Luzon and the 2010 World Nine-ball Champion, nicknamed "Django", after the lead character of the 1966 film of the same name, and sometimes also called "Bustie", especially in the United States. Bustamante has won over 70 international titles and is considered one of the greatest pool players of all time.
Kelly Teresa Fisher is an English professional pool, snooker and English billiards player.
Niels Feijen is a Dutch professional pool player, from the Hague. His nickname is "the Terminator". In 2014 he won the WPA World 9-ball championship.
Earl Strickland is an American professional pool player who is considered one of the best nine-ball players of all time. He has won over 100 championship titles and three world titles. In 2006 he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame. In 1996, Strickland won the largest cash prize to date winning the PCA $1,000,000 Challenge by being the first player to run 10 consecutive racks in a tournament.
Jean Balukas is an American pool player from Brooklyn, New York, and considered one of the greatest players of all time. Described as a "trailblazer, a child prodigy, a loner who rebelled against dress codes for women—the pool equivalent of Billie Jean King", she is a five-time Billiards Digest Player of the Year, was the youngest inductee into the BCA Hall of Fame and the second woman given the honor, and was ranked fifteenth on Billiard Digest Greatest Players of the [20th] Century.
Alejandro Salvador "Alex" Pagulayan is a Filipino-born Canadian professional pool player. His nickname is "the Lion", given to him by Paul Thornley, Canadian snooker player whom he credits as his mentor. Pagulayan is considered one of the best pool players of all time as well as one of the best one-pocket player of all time. He was born in Cabagan, Isabela, Philippines and was raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Pagulayan represented the Philippines in the mid-2000s and in 2012, he began carrying the Canadian flag in international tournaments again.
Jose Parica is a Filipino professional pool player from Manila, nicknamed "Amang" and "the Giant Killer." As a Filipino Hall of Famer, he pioneered the "Filipino invasion" in the United States in the late 70s, especially in the game of Nine-ball. Also known as "the King" in the Philippines, Parica is considered one of the greatest money players of all time. In 1997, Parica became the only player since to perform a perfect TPA score of .1000 in a race to 11 racks, making not a single mistake the entire match.
The World Pool Association (WPA) is the international governing body for pool. It was formed in 1987, and was initially headed by a provisional board of directors consisting of representatives from Australia, Americas, Africa, and Europe. As of 2023, the WPA president is Ishaun Singh of South Africa. It is an associate of the World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS), the international umbrella organization that encompasses the major cue sports. WPA is headquartered in Gauteng, South Africa.
Jasmin Ouschan is an Austrian professional pool player from Klagenfurt, Carinthia. Her first professional competition occurred in 2002, but she did not officially become a professional member of the Women's Professional Billiards Association (WPBA) until 2007. She is currently one of the top-ranked women in the world according to the 2010 prize money list and by the WPBA rankings. At times, she has been ranked as the number one female player in the world. Since 2006, she has been listed among the top-ten women in the annual prize money rankings. Ouschan competes regularly with men on the Euro Tour and in 2008 became the first woman to earn a medal in an open world pool championship.
The WPA World Nine-ball Championship is an annual professional nine-ball pool tournament contested since 1990. The championship is sanctioned by the World Pool Association (WPA) and principally sponsored and organised by Matchroom Sport, who provide the event's official website branded as World Pool Championship. The championship is divided into men's, women's and wheelchair divisions.
The English-originating version of eight-ball pool, also known as English pool, English eight-ball, blackball, or simply reds and yellows, is a pool game played with sixteen balls on a small pool table with six pockets. It originated in the United Kingdom and is played in the Commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa. In the UK and Ireland it is usually called simply "pool".
Allen Hopkins is an American professional pocket billiards (pool) player, professional billiards color commentator and BCA Hall of Fame inductee. He promotes multiple annual pool events and still competes as a professional contender.
The ACUI Collegiate Pocket Billiards National Championship, in recent years known more specifically as the ACUI Collegiate Nine-ball National Championship, was an amateur United States annual pool competition for university and college students, organized by the Association of College Unions International (ACUI). It was founded in 1937, and was one of ACUI's longest-running programs. In June 2020, the ACUI made the decision to discontinue their National Collegiate Pocket Billiards program.
The 1999 World Pool Championship was a professional pool championship that took place in 1999 in Cardiff, Wales. The event was billed as a world championship by Matchroom Sport as an alternative to the World Pool-Billiard Association's 1999 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, won by Nick Varner. Despite there being two world titles for the same discipline in 1999, both are considered as valid in 1999 by the WPA.
The Women's Professional Snooker Championship was a snooker tournament organised by the Women's Billiards Association. Held ten times, the event was first played from 1934 to 1941, and again from 1947 to 1950. Across all ten editions, only four players reached the final. Ruth Harrison won eight of the events, with Agnes Morris and Thelma Carpenter winning the others.
This tournament was not recognized at the time by the WPA, but Reyes was later retrospectively acknowledged as the winner of one of two world championships held in 1999. Nick Varner won the "official" world title. The two tournaments were merged for the following year, with both men listed as the champion for 1999.
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 Cue sportsportal The rules of games in italics are standardized by international sanctioning bodies. | ||
