| Sport | Pool |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2004 |
| Founder | World Pool-Billiard Association |
| Most recent champion(s) | Joshua Filler (2024) |
| Related competitions | Nine-ball, Ten-ball |
| Official website | wpapool |
The WPA World Eight-ball Championship is a professional eight-ball pool tournament sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), initially contested from 2004 to 2012 in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. [1] [2] After not being held for several years, it was announced by the WPA that the championship would return in 2017, to be held at the Olympic Centre in Jinan, China. [3] However, that event did not occur, and the championship continued to remain dormant until Predator Cues re-established the tournament as part of their Pro Billiard Series, beginning with the 2022 edition of the tournament.
| Name | Nationality | Winner | Runner-up | Semi-final or better |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dennis Orcollo |  Philippines | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Ronnie Alcano | Philippines | 2 | ||
| Chang Jung-Lin |  Chinese Taipei | 0 | 1 | |
| Efren Reyes | Philippines | |||
| Francisco Sánchez Ruíz |  Spain | |||
| Joshua Filler |  Germany | |||
| Karl Boyes |  England | |||
| Ralf Souquet | Germany | |||
| Shane Van Boening |  United States | |||
| Wu Jiaqing |  China |
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.
Gerda Hofstätter Gergerson, nicknamed "G-Force", is an Austrian professional pool player. Hofstätter won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 1995. She is a winner at the European Pool Championship on nine occasions, and won the Austrian national Championship seventeen times. Hofstätter is a two-time Hall of Fame inductee being voted into both the Women's Professional Billiard Association and Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fames in the Greatest Players Category. Hofstätter was the Austrian Sportswoman of the Year for Carinthia in 1993. Hofstätter played on the WPBA Tour until her retirement, doing so from 1993 onward.
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.
Dennis Orcollo, sometimes called Dennis Orcullo, is a Filipino professional pool player, nicknamed "Surigao" and "RoboCop". He has been called "The Money-Game King".
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-Billiard 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".
Oliver Ortmann is a German professional pool player from Gelsenkirchen. Ortmann is a three-time world champion, winning the 1995 WPA World Nine-ball Championship and the 2007 and 2010 World Straight Pool Championship. Ortmann became the second player to win three WPA world championships. With fourteen wins, he the second most successful player at the European Pool Championships. Ortmann is also the second most successful player on the Euro Tour, winning fourteen events. Ortmann was the first non-American player to win the BCA U.S. Open Straight Pool Championship, in 1989.
The World Straight Pool Championship is a pool competition, that was held up until the game of Nine-ball became popularized in America. It was the most prestigious straight pool tournament up until the early 21st century, tournaments like the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship and the European Pool Championship 14.1 that are still held annually, have gained prominence in recent years. During the tournament's early years, it was the only global professional title for straight pool. The event was revived in 2006, in part to restore the game's popularity in the United States. The World Straight Pool Championship was sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010. The tournament continued unsanctioned from 2011 to 2019. Ralph Greenleaf & Willie Mosconi are the most successful players having both won the tournament on 19 occasions. The oldest player to win the tournament is Irving Crane at 59 years old at the time of his victory. The youngest player to win the tournament is Ralph Greenleaf at 20 years old at the time of his first victory.
Daryl Peach is an English professional pool player, from Lancashire, who resides in Blackpool, England. He won the 2007 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, where he defeated the Philippines' Roberto Gomez 17–15 in the final to become the first British player to win the WPA World Nine-ball Championship.
The 2011 WPA World Eight-ball Championship was an eight-ball world championship, organized by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), and held 19–26 February 2011 at the Fujairah Exhibition Centre of the Al Diar Siji Hotel in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. A total of 116 players from all of the WPA's six regions participated.
Andy Segal, nicknamed "the Magic Man", is a trick-shot pool champion from Huntington, New York. He began as a professional nine-ball player in the 1990s, and was a regular on the Camel Pro Billiard Tour before switching to trick-shot competition in 2002. A full-time pro player since 2007, Segal holds four world records in artistic billiards. He is known for his television competition appearances on ESPN, and has won many such events, including Trick Shot Magic, the World Cup of Trick Shots, the WPA World Artistic Pool Championship, and the Masters Artistic Pool Championship. Segal also performs trick shot exhibitions all over the world, and in films and television.
The 2016 WPA World Nine-ball Championship was the 25th edition of the 9-Ball pool World Championships. It took place from July 30 to August 4, 2016 in the al-Attiya Sports Arena of the Al-Arabi Sports Club in Doha. The Qatari capital was the seventh time in a row the venue for the 9-Ball Championships.
The 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship was a professional pool tournament for the discipline of ten-ball organised by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and CueSports International. It was the fifth WPA World Ten-ball Championship; the previous championship was held in 2015. After plans for an event in both 2016 and 2018 to be held in Manila fell through, a 2019 event at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas as part of a three-year deal for the event to be played in the United States was agreed. The event was held concurrently with the Billiard Congress of America's National Ten-ball event from July 22 to 26. The event was sponsored by cue manufacturer Predator Group.
The 2012 WPA World Eight-ball Championship was a professional eight-ball championship, organized by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), and held 11–18 February 2012 at the Fujairah Exhibition Centre of the Al Diar Siji Hotel in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. A total of 96 players from all of the WPA's six regions participated.
The 2010 WPA World Eight-ball Championship was an eight-ball world championship, organized by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), and held 4–10 April 2010 at the Fujairah Exhibition Centre of the Al Diar Siji Hotel in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. A total of 64 players competed in the tournament.
The 2008 WPA World Eight-ball Championship was an eight-ball world championship, organized by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), and held 18–25 April 2008 at the Fujairah Exhibition Centre of the Al Diar Siji Hotel in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. A total of 64 players competed in the tournament.
The 2007 WPA World Eight-ball Championship was an eight-ball world championship, organized by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), and held 1–8 March 2007 at the Fujairah Exhibition Centre of the Al Diar Siji Hotel in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. A total of 64 players competed in the tournament.
Han Yu is a Chinese professional pool player. She is a three time WPA World Nine-ball Championship women's champion, winning the event in 2013, 2016 and 2018. Han is also a semi-finalist in three further world championships, in 2017 in the nine-ball event, and 2011 and 2014 in ten-ball.
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| Major international tournaments |
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 Cue sportsportal The rules of games in italics are standardized by international sanctioning bodies. | ||
