 Niels Feijen at the Mosconi Cup in 2008. | |
| Born | 3 February 1977 The Hague, Netherlands |
|---|---|
| Sport country |  Netherlands |
| Nickname | "The Terminator" |
| Professional | 1997 |
| Pool games | 9-ball |
| Tournament wins | |
| World Champion | 9-Ball (2014), Straight Pool (2008) |
Niels Feijen (born 3 February 1977, The Hague) is a Dutch professional pool player, from the Hague. His nickname is "the Terminator". In 2014 he won the WPA World 9-ball championship. [1] [2]
In 2001, Feijen reached the finals of a nine-ball tournament in Tokyo, Japan. The event had a field of more than 700 players and offered the largest prize money at that time. However, he lost to Efren Reyes. [3] In 2004, he won the inaugural Skins Billiards Championship with prize money of US$42,500. [4] Feijen has won the European straight pool championship five times. [5] In 2005 he was the winner of the Big Apple Nine-ball Championship, held in Queens, New York, an event with 128 of the world's best players. He represented Europe in the 2001, 2004–5, 2007-9 and 2011-16 Mosconi Cup events.
Feijen won the 2007 $50,000 winner-take-all International Challenge of Champions by defeating Lee Van Corteza. [6] In 2008, Feijen won the World Straight Pool Championship with a victory over Francisco Bustamante in the finals. [7] On 5 October 2008, he received the 3rd prize of $25,000 in the inaugural WPA World Ten-ball Championship. [8] [9]
In 2010, Feijen reached the finals of the WPA World Eight-ball Championship but ended up in 2nd place losing to Karl Boyes of Great Britain. [10] He would reach the finals of that same tournament again the next year, and was defeated by Dennis Orcollo of the Philippines. [11] 2014 has been the best year so far for Feijen, who won the European Straight Pool Championship, the European 9-ball Championship and the 2014 WPA World Nine-ball Championship. [12] In 2015 he was voted Most Valuable Player of the Mosconi Cup for the fourth time in the last five years. [13]
Feijen has been a winner of events on the Euro Tour on 11 occasions, putting him third only behind Ralf Souquet (23) and Oliver Ortmann (14) in number of victories on the tour. His latest victory was at the 2022 Austria Open. [14] [15] He was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in July 2023. [16]
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.
Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to pot as many billiard balls as possible without playing a foul. The game was the primary version of pool played in professional competition until it was superseded by faster-playing games like nine-ball and eight-ball in the 1980s.
Thorsten Hohmann is a German professional pool player, nicknamed "the Hitman." He is a three-time world champion, winning the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 2003, and 2013, and winning the WPA World Straight Pool Championship in 2006.
Dennis Orcollo, sometimes called Dennis Orcullo, is a Filipino professional pool player, nicknamed "Surigao" and "RoboCop". He has been called "The Money-Game King".
Alex Lely is a Dutch former professional pool player. Lely won the 1999 World Pool Masters after defeating Efren Reyes 7–5, and reached the final in 2000 but lost to Ralf Souquet 7–3. He is a two-time European champion having won the nine-ball and eight-ball at the 2005 European Pool Championships.
David Alcaide Bermúdez is a Spanish professional pool player. He is a two-time winner of the World Pool Masters, winning the 2017 event, defeating Jayson Shaw 8–7 in the final, and again in 2019 defeating Alexander Kazakis 9–8. Alcaide is a three-time world championship semi-finalist having reached the stage at the WPA World 10-ball Championship, in 2009 and 2015, and the WPA World Eight-ball Championship in 2011.
Mika Immonen is a Finnish professional Hall of Fame pool player, nicknamed "The Iceman."
Rodney Morris is a professional pool player of Chamorro - Hawaiian descent. Nicknamed "Rocket" he currently resides in Acworth, Georgia. Rodney married his wife Rheyannon in July 2020.
Nick van den Berg is a Dutch professional pool player. He was the runner up at the 2005 WPA World Eight-ball Championship, where he lost to Wu Chia-ching 11–5 in the final. He is a multiple time winner of events on the Euro Tour, winning 10 tournaments between 2002 and 2017, the fourth highest in the history of the tour. A six-time winner of the European Pool Championships, Van den Berg has represented Europe at the Mosconi Cup on eight occasions, winning the event on six occasions as well as tying the event in 2006.
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.
Darren Appleton is an English professional pool player, best known for playing Eight-ball, Nine-ball and Ten-ball pool.
Fabio Petroni is an Italian professional pool player.
Albin Alois Ouschan is an Austrian professional pool and billiards player. Ouschan was the 2016 WPA World Nine-ball Championship winner, as well as the runner-up in 2014. He also won the 14.1 Continuous European championship the same year. Ouschan is a multiple time Austrian champion in 8-ball, ten-ball and straight pool. Ouschan alongside partner Mario He won both the 2017 World Cup of Pool, 2019 World Cup of Pool and reached the final of the 2018 World Cup of Pool. They would lose 10–3 to the Chinese team of Wu Jia-qing & Liu Haitao. He won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship for the second time in 2021, beating Omar Al-Shaheen 13–9 in the final. He won the International Open in 2021, defeating Dennis Orcollo 13-6 in the final.
Huidji See is a Dutch professional pool and billiards player. He was the 2011 WPA World 10-Ball Pool Champion.
Karl Boyes is an English professional pool player. He won the 2010 world 8-ball championships. In the final, Boyes had the much better start and led Niels Feijen 4-0 and 11–5, before his opponent started a catch-up and levelled at 12-12. Boyes won the final rack, winning 13–12.
Jayson Shaw is a Scottish professional pool player. In 2010, Shaw was a WPA World Blackball Champion. In 2016, Shaw won the 25th International Challenge of Champions event.
Joshua Filler is a German professional pool player from Bönen, Germany. In 2018 Filler defeated Carlo Biado 13–10 to win the 2018 WPA World Nine-ball Championship. In 2017 he was the youngest player to win the China Open, and in 2018 he also won the 10-ball European Pool Championships. Filler became WPA and Euro Tour world number 1 in 2019, and later he reached the final of the 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship before losing 10–7 to Ko Ping-chung.
Professional tournaments in table-top cue sports took place in 2020. These events include snooker, pool disciplines and billiards. Whilst these are traditionally singles sports, some matches and tournaments are held as doubles or as teams. The snooker season runs between May and April, whilst the pool and billiards seasons is listed over the calendar year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was disrupted with many events being cancelled or postponed. Cue sports events were played in January and February, before tournaments were discontinued for all disciplines due to the pandemic, returning in June without an audience.
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