Its a marketing move.
WORLD POOL CHAMPIONSHIP (6-10 June2021) Champion $50K
- Thread starter spartan
- Start date
Its a moot point anyway for the past few years. No entity besides the oil kings in the Middle East has a dime to sponsor a WPA approved World Championship in the other disciplines.
I too like calling this the "World Pool Championship".
Thank for your input, JV, but I have not suggested that any events outside of nine ball should be eliminated. I enjoy most of the other disciplines in cue sports very much, and consider some of the events in which these games are played to be elite. Still, how many people , if asked who is the current world champion would say Ko Ping Chung, the winner of the last World 10-ball Championship? My guess is virtually none, as in pro pool this is the 9-ball era and it has been for roughly 40 years. At pro level, all other games are fringe games. I've been hearing since 1999 that 10-ball will replace 9-ball as the primary discipline at pro level, but this hasn't happened and I see no evidence that it will ever happen.
That said, you raise an interesting topic. One of the longest debates in our game is whether Johnston City titles in nine ball and one pocket should be considered world championships, as these were the most elite events of the year from the early 1960s until the early 1970s in those disciplines. Of course, this was during the straight pool era and the World Straight Pool champion (to avoid confusion, sometimes the US Open 14.1 was the de facto world championship) was always known as THE world champion.
There's no conclusive answer here, JV, as there has long been ambiguity with respect to what constitutes a world championship in pool. Nonetheless, I'm aligned with Matchroom here because I feel there should be just one world pool champion and by every bit of logic I can muster, that champion should be the one that prevails in 9-ball, the primary competitive pro discipline for this era in pool.
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Well said, JV. There is absolutely no question that the 9-ball era can end in very short order. It can easily be argued that if the IPT eight ball tour of 2006 had become what it was intended to be and was still around, this might already be considered the 8-ball era at pro level.
Times evolve and the pro game of choice evolves with it. The straight pool era, in rough terms, lasted about 55 years, and the nine ball era is about 40 years old, so perhaps a change is in order. Will 10-ball, Chinese 8-ball, or something else replace 9-ball as the primary competitive game? Tough to say, but it could happen.
It's a marketing thing. They want to sell this as THE world championship to advertisers and broadcasters. If I remember correctly, Matchroom had issues with the WPA expanding their offerings of world championships back in the mid 00's and calling their event the World 9 ball championship because it diluted their product. You may notice on their website the US Open is not the US 9 ball Open it is just the US Open Pool Championship. I'm assuming it's similar reasoning.
I think the value is in the branding as mentioned above. That value is primarily to the promoter and secondarily to the players who benefit if the promoter succeeds.
Also missing are Raga and Zheng, #6 and #7 in the world based on Fargo. Like the other Asians, they'll be back.
it's all very sad, they would've had a huge impact. but it is what it is and it's not their fault, or matchroom's fault.
Haven't heard of 80% of those peoplePLAYERS LIST is out.
Draw/Brackets should be out soon
1. WORLD RANKINGS
________________________________________
PLAYERS RANKED 1-16 ON THE WPA WORLD RANKING
Joshua Filler
(GER)
Shane van Boening
(USA)
Fedor Gorst
(ROC)
Jayson Shaw
(GBR)
Alexander Kazakis
(GRE)
Niels Feijen
(NED)
Ralf Souquet
(GER)
Billy Thorpe
(USA)
Tyler Styer
(USA)
PLAYERS RANKED 1-16 ON THE MATCHROOM POOL WORLD RANKING
Albin Ouschan
(AUT)
Naoyuki Oi
(JPN)
Max Lechner
(AUT)
Eklent Kaci
(ALB)
Chris Melling
(GBR)
Darren Appleton
(GBR)
Billy Thorpe
(USA)
2. CONTINENTAL FEDERATION INVITATIONS
________________________________________
Masato Yoshioka
(JPN)
Yukio Akagariyama
(JPN)
Roberto Gomez
(PHI)
So Shaw
(IRI)
Hunter Lombardo
(USA)
Jeremy Sossei
(USA)
Jennifer Barretta
(USA)
Mieszko Fortunski
(POL)
Karol Skowerski
(POL)
Tomasz Kaplan
(POL)
Denis Grabe
(EST)
Mario He
(AUT)
Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz
(ESP)
Konrad Juszczyszyn
(POL)
Wojciech Szewczyk
(POL)
Mark Gray
(GBR)
Oliver Szolnoki
(HUN)
Sanjin Pahlivanovic
(BIH)
Roman Hybler
(CZE)
Mats Schjetne
(NOR)
Radoslaw Babica
(POL)
Muhummed Daydat
(RSA)
Richard Halliday
(RSA)
Vincent Halliday
(RSA)
Ruben Bautista
(MEX) Jeff Nieuwenhuyzen
Ricardo Sini
(ITA)
Nikos Ekonomopoulos
(GRE)
Daniel Maciol
(POL)
Tim de Ruyter
(NED)
Marco Dorenburg
(GER)
Miquel Silva
(POR)
Tobias Bongers
(GER)
Vitaliy Patsura
(UKR)
Shane Wolford
(USA)
Jani Siekkinen
(FIN)
3. TOURNAMENT INVITES
________________________________________
Alex Montpellier
(FRA)
April Larson
(USA)
Benji Buckley
(GBR)
Elliot Sanderson
(GBR)
Julio Burgos
(PUR)
Kaiden Hunkins
(USA)
Kristina Tkach
(ROC)
Lukas Fracasso Verner
(USA)
Marc Vidal
(USA)
Marcel Price
(GBR)
Margaret Fefilova
(BLR)
Oscar Dominquez
(USA)
Ricky Evans
(USA)
Sergey Lutsker
(ROC)
Stephen Holem
(CAN)
Wiktor Zielinski
(POL)
4. MATCHROOM POOL EVENTS
________________________________________
MOSCONI CUP PLAYERS 2020
Corey Deuel
(USA)
Chris Robinson
(USA)
Skyler Woodward
(USA)
PLAYERS WHO FINISHED 1ST-9TH AT US OPEN 2019
Jeffrey De Luna
(PHI)
Imran Majid
(GBR)
PLAYERS WHO FINISHED 1ST-9TH AT WORLD 9-BALL CHAMPIONSHIP 2019
Casper Matikainen
(FIN)
Ruslan Chinakhov
(ROC)
Waleed Majid
(QAT)
Aloysuis Yapp
(SGP)
Mateusz Sniegocki
(POL)
PREDATOR CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUE POOL WINNERS' GROUP 2021
David Alcaide
(ESP)
Mark Bijsterbosch
(NED)
5. WPA WOMEN'S WORLD RANKINGS
________________________________________
PLAYERS RANKED IN THE TOP 5 OF THE WPA WOMEN'S WORLD RANKING
Kelly Fisher
(GBR)
Jasmin Ouschan
(AUT)
6. EVENT WINNERS
________________________________________
WINNERS OF MATCHROOM POOL EVENTS 2018-2020
WINNERS OF MATCHROOM WORLD RANKING EVENTS 2020
WPA WORLD U-19 CHAMPION
Jonas Souto Comino
(ESP)
WPA JUNIOR GIRLS WORLD CHAMPION
WPA U-17 WORLD CHAMPION
Moritz Neuhausen
(GER)
7. WORLD RANKINGS
________________________________________
PLAYERS RANKED 17TH ONWARDS ON THE WPA WORLD RANKING
Thorsten Hohmann
(GER)
Toru Kuribayashi
(JPN)
Marco Teutscher
(NED)
Mika Immonen
(FIN)
Nick Malai
(GRE)
Petri Makkonen
(FIN)
Yip Kin-Ling
(HK)
Robbie Capito
(HK)
Danny Olson
(USA)
Omar Al Shaheen
(KUW)
Pijus Labutis
(LTU)
Mohammad Berjawi
(LEB)
Jakub Koniar
(SLO)
8. ADDITIONAL TOURNAMENT INVITES
________________________________________
Jaroslav Polach
(SLO)
Petr Urban
(CZE)
Michal Gavenciak
(CZE)
Fabio Petroni
(ITA)
Daniele Corrieri
(ITA)
Mickey Krause
(DEN)
Bahram Lotfy
(DEN)
Badar Abdullah Alawadhi
(KUW)
Christoph Reintjes
(GER)
Mark Magi
(EST)
Aleksa Pecelj
(SRB)
Ronald Regli
(SUI)
Dimitri Jungo
(SUI)
Yana Halliday
(BLR)
Veronika Ivanovskaia
(GER)
Kevin Lannoye
(BEL)
Andreja Klasovic
(SRB)
Vladimir Matvienko
(ROC)
Francisco Gatsby
(CHI)
Henrique Correia
(POR)
Vania Franco
(POR)
Darcy Joseph McGinley
(CAN)
Jan van Lierop
(NED)
Andreas Madsen
(DEN)
Ivica Putnik
(CRO)
Ivo Aarts
(NED)
Alain Da Costa
(FRA)
Kim Laaksonen
(FIN)
Roberto Bartol
(CRO)
Benjamin Belhassen
(FRA)
Philipp Stojanovic
(CRO)
Daniel Schneider
(SUI)
World Pool Championship - Matchroom Pool
www.matchroompool.com
For me, I find 43 names I don't know in this field, which is about a third of the field.
This is easily the weakest field in World 9 Ball /World Pool Championship history. Only about 40% of top 10 or top 30 or top 50 Fargorate are playing. Typically, in past World 9 Ball /World Pool Championship, easily you have 60% to 70% of top players taking part.
Take example of last biggest tournament (not counting team event WCOP or invitational WPM) - Diamond Las Vegas last year. That is not even a major but it boast 16 of top 30 players which is 62%
It is what it is in these covid-19 times. Kudos to Matchroom for hosting again this great event and making it great again. Despite the weakest field ever, I have enjoyed Matchroom events with weak fields this year like CLP, WCOP, WPM
This is the biggest event of the year and looking forward to it.
I don't think the top 10 cream of the cream SVB, Filler, Shaw, Gorst will win. Definitely easier field for them this year but they have big targets on their back, pressure is huge on them to win.
I actually think the next tier- the cream Kaci, Niels, Albin, Kazakis are the ones who may snap this off- cos they are the most seasoned this year ,have played tonnes of matches (in particular the CLP). Consistent Kaci is due to win a major.
Take example of last biggest tournament (not counting team event WCOP or invitational WPM) - Diamond Las Vegas last year. That is not even a major but it boast 16 of top 30 players which is 62%
It is what it is in these covid-19 times. Kudos to Matchroom for hosting again this great event and making it great again. Despite the weakest field ever, I have enjoyed Matchroom events with weak fields this year like CLP, WCOP, WPM
This is the biggest event of the year and looking forward to it.
I don't think the top 10 cream of the cream SVB, Filler, Shaw, Gorst will win. Definitely easier field for them this year but they have big targets on their back, pressure is huge on them to win.
I actually think the next tier- the cream Kaci, Niels, Albin, Kazakis are the ones who may snap this off- cos they are the most seasoned this year ,have played tonnes of matches (in particular the CLP). Consistent Kaci is due to win a major.
While this is not the field we would like to see, I think it's the best that can be arranged right now. If the choice is to go now or wait for global normality, I vote for do it now. Does anyone think it should be postponed?
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Probably. I imagine they are really restrictive in China. Pretty much every country in the world currently has some kind of travel restrictions. Here's a site that tries to track all of them:
IATA - International Travel Document News
www.iatatravelcentre.com
And here are part of the restrictions for entering the UK. Some countries are banned completely. Allowed travelers (US, Germany, etc.) are mostly required to have three tests. One taken before arrival, one on the second day in the UK and one on the 8th day in the UK.
Note that anyone who has been in or through the Philippines is barred from entry.
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