WPA World Nine-ball Championship

In the summer of 1989, the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) began plans for a world championship tournament. The group sent invitations, rules, sports regulations and by-laws. Reception was positive, and a provisional Board was created.[1]

In March 1990, the inaugural WPA World Nine-ball Championship was held in Bergheim, Germany. The playing field included 32 men and 16 women in separate divisions, and has since become an annual event. The event was organised solely by the WPA from this inauguration through 1999.[2]

In July 1999, Matchroom Sport attempted to get involved with the organisation of the event, but their bid failed. The WPA event was played in Alicante, Spain, and won by Nick Varner of the United States. Broadcast on ESPN, it was the first pro nine-ball championship to be televised. Matchroom Sport, meanwhile, instead organised tournament called the "World Professional Pool Championship", a competing and non-WPA-sanctioned event in Cardiff, Wales, which was won by Efren Reyes of the Philippines.[3]

In 2000, Matchroom and the WPA agreed that tournaments would merge into a single official world championship. The WPA also agreed to recognise the results of the 1999 Matchroom event, meaning that official listings show both Varner and Reyes as 1999 world champions. Matchroom changed its promotional name for the event to the "World Pool Championship", dropping the word "professional" from the title. The event remained in Cardiff through 2003.[2]

In 2001, the number of competitors in the men's division was increased to 128 and a men's division first prize raised to $65,000.[2][4]

Two-time champion Albin Ouschan

The 2004 and 2005 events were held in Taiwan, with a men's division first prize of $75,000 as of 2004.[2] The 2005 tournament saw two rules changes: last 64 and last 32 matches were extended to race-to-10 format, and the pockets on the tables were narrowed, to make the game more difficult.[5]

In the 2006 event, the Philippines became the host country for two years. All matches became alternating-break all the way from the group stages to the finals. Men's division first prize escalated to $100,000. In 2007, the event ran from November 3–11, and Daryl Peach of the England was the victor. Because of the global late-2000s recession the championship did not reappear on the calendar in 2008. For some time neither Matchroom nor the WPA released any predictions regarding its reinstatement, and no 2009 event was held, either.[6]

After a two-year hiatus, the tournament returned as the 2010 WPA World Nine-ball Championship in Doha, Qatar. Francisco Bustamante of the Philippines won the 2010 title.[7] The event was then held annually in Doha through 2019.[8] After not being contested in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the championship resumed in 2021 in Milton Keynes, England. The 2022 edition is scheduled for April 6–10 in Milton Keynes.[9]

[10]

Year	Dates	Location	Winner	Runner-up	Final score
1990	March 3-7	Bergheim, Germany	Earl Strickland	Jeff Carter	3–1 (sets)
1991	May 29 – June 5	Las Vegas, United States	Earl Strickland (2)	Nick Varner	9–7
1992	April 1-5	Taipei, Taiwan	Johnny Archer	Bobby Hunter	13–12
1993	December 7-12	Königswinter, Germany	Chao Fong-pang	Thomas Hasch	2–0 (sets)
1994	November 2-6	Chicago, United States	Takeshi Okumura	Yasunari Itsuzaki	9–6
1995	November 15-19	Taipei, Taiwan	Oliver Ortmann	Dallas West	11–9
1996	October 23-27	Borlänge, Sweden	Ralf Souquet	Tom Storm	11–1
1997	October 1–5	Chicago, United States	Johnny Archer (2)	Lee Kun-fang	9–3
1998	November 11–15	Taipei, Taiwan	Kunihiko Takahashi	Johnny Archer	13–3
1999	July 18–26	Cardiff, Wales	Efren Reyes	Chang Hao-ping	17–8
1999	December 5–12	Alicante, Spain	Nick Varner	Jeremy Jones	13–8
2000	July 1–9	Cardiff, Wales	Chao Fong-pang (2)	Ismael Paez	17–6
2001	July 14–22		Mika Immonen	Ralf Souquet	17–10
2002	July 13–21		Earl Strickland (3)	Francisco Bustamante	17–15
2003	July 12–20		Thorsten Hohmann	Alex Pagulayan	17–10
2004	July 10–18	Taipei, Taiwan	Alex Pagulayan	Chang Pei-wei	17–13
2005	July 2–10	Kaohsiung, Taiwan	Wu Jiaqing	Kuo Po-cheng	17–16
2006	November 4–12	Pasay, Philippines	Ronnie Alcano	Ralf Souquet	17–11
2007	November 3–11	Quezon City, Philippines	Daryl Peach	Roberto Gomez	17–15
2008	Not held due to the financial crisis of 2007–2008
2009
2010	June 29 – July 5	Doha, Qatar	Francisco Bustamante	Kuo Po-cheng	13–7
2011	June 25 – July 1		Yukio Akakariyama	Ronnie Alcano	13–11
2012	June 22–29		Darren Appleton	Li Hewen	13–12
2013	September 2–13		Thorsten Hohmann (2)	Antonio Gabica	13–7
2014	June 16–27		Niels Feijen	Albin Ouschan	13–10
2015	September 7–18		Ko Pin-yi	Shane Van Boening	13–11
2016	August 1–4		Albin Ouschan	Shane Van Boening	13–6
2017	December 5–14		Carlo Biado	Roland Garcia	13–5
2018	December 10–20		Joshua Filler	Carlo Biado	13–10
2019	December 13–17		Fedor Gorst	Chang Jung-lin	13–11
2020	Not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2021	June 6–10	Milton Keynes, England	Albin Ouschan (2)	Omar Al-Shaheen	13–9
2022	April 6–10		Shane Van Boening	Albin Ouschan	13–6
2023	February 1–5	Kielce, Poland	Francisco Sanchez Ruiz	Mohammad Soufi	13–10

[10]

Name	Nationality	Winner	Runner-up	Finals	Semi-final or better	Final stage appearances
Earl Strickland	United States	3	0	3	5	6
Albin Ouschan	Austria	2	2	4	4	8
Johnny Archer	United States		1	3	5	10
Chao Fong-pang	Chinese Taipei		0	2	3	5
Thorsten Hohmann	Germany				2	6
Ralf Souquet	Germany	1	2	3	6	11
Shane Van Boening	United States				4	8
Alex Pagulayan	Canada		1	2	3	7
Francisco Bustamante	Philippines
Carlo Biado	Philippines					6
Nick Varner	United States					3
Ronnie Alcano	Philippines				2
Efren Reyes	Philippines		0	1		7
Takeshi Okumura	Japan					5
Wu Jiaqing	China
Ko Pin-yi	Chinese Taipei				1	9
Mika Immonen	Finland
Oliver Ortmann	Germany					6
Kunihiko Takahashi	Japan					5
Niels Feijen	Netherlands
Darren Appleton	England					4
Daryl Peach	England					3
Francisco Sanchez Ruiz	Spain
Joshua Filler	Germany
Fedor Gorst	Russia					1
Yukio Akakariyama	Japan
Kuo Po-cheng	Chinese Taipei	0		2	2	5
Lee Kun-fang	Chinese Taipei			1		3
Li Hewen	China
Tom Storm	Sweden
Chang Jung-lin	Chinese Taipei				1	5
Antonio Gabica	Philippines					4
Dallas West	United States
Jeremy Jones	United States
Omar Al-Shaheen	Kuwait
Chang Hao-ping	Chinese Taipei					2
Roberto Gomez	Philippines
Bobby Hunter	United States					1
Chang Pei-wei	Chinese Taipei
Ismael Paez	Mexico
Jeff Carter	United States
Mohammad Soufi	Syria
Roland Garcia	Philippines
Thomas Hasch	Germany
Yasunari Itsuzaki	Japan

• Active participants are shown in bold.
• Only players who reached the final are included.
• Final stage appearances relates to players who reach the last 16 players of the event.
• In the event of identical records, players are sorted in alphabetical order by first name.

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