1994 World 9-Ball
- Thread starter sascha
- Start date
The WPA World 9-ball championships as I recall were in Arlington Heights, IL in October 1994. I attended a few of the evening sessions for that event but don't recall anyone I know taking video.
Who was playing?
Lunchmoney
Lunchmoney
lunchmoney said:
Takeshi Okumura beat Yasunari Itsuzaki in an all-Japanese final. Mike Zuglan, USA and Tom Storm from Sweden tied for third. Mike Bandy, USA, Ray Martin, USA, Shuji Nagata, Japan and Oliver Ortmann, Germany all tied for fifth.
Ewa Mataya-Laurance won the women's tournament. Jeanette Lee finished second.
bob c said:
Thanks for the info. Somewhere in the house I have a video of Johnny Archer winning his second worlds title in a row and I wasn't sure of the year. The final four were Archer, Efren Reyes, Strickland and Paul Potier. I recorded it off of ESPN. Poor quality and lots of commercials. Archer beat Strickland then Efren in the finals. I can remember that Archer was in his very early 20's.
Lunchmoney
lunchmoney said:
Johnny Archer won the WPA 9-Ball Championship twice. The first time in 1992 in Taiwan beating Bobby Hunter in the final. The second time was in 1997 in Arlington Heights, Illinois beating Lee Kung-fang.
I watched the 1997 final from the third row trying to see around Don Mackey. At the time Davenport, Wetch and the rest of the USA contingent were cheering Archer on using his new, and now forgotten, nickname, "Bones".
Two other distinct memories from this tournament include seeing a young Larry Nevel wearing a tuxedo. Also, all the players had black tuxedos except Danny DiLiberto who apparently didn't want to spring for the rental and was wearing a gray tux with wide lapels probably dating to the 1970s
Here is a link to all the first and second place finishers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WPA_World_Nine-ball_Champions
sascha said:
I've had a VHS video tape from that, but cannot recall where I've put it as moved a lot last 10yrs or so.
Nothing special though. The production wasn't WC quality, it looked more like two guys playing an exhibition. Okumura did run a 3 or 4 pack though and made some nice shots (one fluke also if my memory serves me right), but there wasn't this tension nor atmosphere, which would be felt through TV also, if it would've been there.
1993 final was much much much better though. The TV-production was far better, and "The Cool Killer" aka. "The Cold Face Killer" aka. "The Cold Faced Murderer", that is Chao Fong-Pang, was in form of the forms.
He murdered Germany's Thomas Hasch without never feeling pity.
They played race-to-seven, best-of-three-sets.
It was 7-1, 7-1, when Chao nodded his head and received applauses and slight head shooking from Hasch.
Seeing that (I was 18 then) changed my view of Pool Billiards completely. I used to admire aggressive, pocketing style players like Strickland and Ortmann then, but Chao's ultimate focus, Grand Master's Chess strategy, pin point accuracy - nearly perfect cue ball control on every shot (with minimal risk taking and with extremely soft touch), really made an impression on me.
People always refer to Strickland or Siegel what it comes to playing in major finals, and they certainly have reasons for that, but we shouldn't forget Chao.
He murdered Hasch then at the WC final 7-1, 7-1, and then seven years later Ismael Paez by the widest score there has been in the WPC final ever.
Unfortunately I couldn't check the result for a fact, but it was 17-5, or 17-8. I never saw that match (unfortuntately), but my friend told me that it was 12-0 already for Chao, and he had played perfect since that moment.
He's truly a killer, probably the deadliest ever, what it comes to single (major) matches and perfect focus and execution.
He should be the bad guy on James Bond movies.
Last edited:
Here is the best I could do,rep appreciated. :smile:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gqoPreD8cY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gqoPreD8cY