WPA World Nine-ball Championship

For the women's event, see WPA Women's World Nine-ball Championship.

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 Association (WPA) and principally sponsored and organized by Matchroom Sport, who promote the event as the World Pool Championship. The championship has men's, women's, youth and wheelchair divisions.

WPA World Nine-ball Championship

Current season, competition or edition: 2025 WPA World Nine-ball Championship
Sport	Pool
Founded	1990
Founder	World Pool Association
Most recent champion	Carlo Biado (2025)
Related competitions	Eight-ball, Ten-ball, Heyball
Website	matchroompool.com

History

Two-time champion Albin Ouschan

In the summer of 1989, the World Pool-Billiard Association (now the World Pool Association or WPA) began plans for a world championship tournament. They created a provisional Board to oversee the creation of a tournament. The event was one of the first time the world's top nine-ball players met in a competition. The inaugural WPA World Nine-ball Championship was held in Bergheim, Germany. A men's event contested between 32 players was won by Earl Strickland and a 16-player women's event won by Robin Bell. A junior's event was first played in 1992, won by Hsia Hui-kai and a wheelchair event was created in 1999 first won by Bob Calderon. The event was organised solely by the WPA from this inauguration through 1999.

In July 1999, Matchroom Sport attempted to get involved with the organisation of the event, but their bid failed. The 1999 event was played in Alicante, Spain, and won by Nick Varner. Broadcast on ESPN, it was the first pro nine-ball championship to be televised. Matchroom Sport, meanwhile, instead organised a new tournament called the "World Professional Pool Championship", a competing event in Cardiff, Wales, which was won by Efren Reyes and broadcast on Sky Sports. With the World Professional Pool Championship being successful, the WPA and Matchroom agreed to merge their two tournaments, with both 1999 events being considered as official world championships. Matchroom continued to promote and organise the event until 2007 when it was not held after they were unable to fund it due to the 2008 financial crisis.

For the 2001 event, the number of competitors in the men's division was increased to 128 and a men's division first prize raised to $65,000 from $17,500. The event stayed in Wales until 2003. The prize money continued to increase. The 2004 and 2005 events were held in Taiwan, with a men's division first prize of $75,000. The pockets on the tables were narrowed, to make the game more difficult. The tournament moved to the Philippines in 2006 and 2007. the event ran from November 3–11, and Daryl Peach of the England was the victor.

After a two-year hiatus, the tournament returned being organised by the WPA as the 2010 WPA World Nine-ball Championship in Doha, Qatar. The event was then held annually in Doha through 2019. Prize money had reduced, with the winner's prize being $36,000, only rising to $40,000 by 2018. After not being contested in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the championship resumed in 2021 in Milton Keynes, England. The 2022 edition was April 6–10 in Milton Keynes.

Winners

Main article: List of WPA World Nine-ball champions

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 Páez	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 Jia-qing	Kuo Po-cheng	17–16
2006	November 4–12	Pasay, Philippines	Ronato Alcano	Ralf Souquet	17–11
2007	November 3–11	Quezon City, Philippines	Daryl Peach	Roberto Gomez	17–15
2008	Not held due to the 2008 financial crisis
2009
2010	June 29 – July 5	Doha, Qatar	Francisco Bustamante	Kuo Po-cheng	13–7
2011	June 25 – July 1		Yukio Akakariyama	Ronato 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 Sánchez Ruiz	Mohammad Soufi	13–10
2024	June 3–8	Jeddah, Saudi Arabia	Fedor Gorst (2)	Eklent Kaçi	15–14
2025	July 21–26		Carlo Biado (2)	Fedor Gorst	15–13

Records

• Earl Strickland holds the record for winning the WPA World Nine-ball Championship the most times with three. (1990, 1991, 2002). He also holds the record for the most consecutive wins with two. (1990, 1991).
• Albin Ouschan holds the record for the most final appearances with four. (2014, 2016, 2021, 2022).
• The oldest pool player to ever win the tournament to date is Nick Varner of the United States, at 51 years old at the time of his victory, The youngest is Wu Jia-qing of Chinese Taipei, aged 16 years old at the time of his victory.

Top performers

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
Carlo Biado	Philippines				4	7
Fedor Gorst	United States			2	3	3
Chao Fong-pang	Chinese Taipei		0			5
Thorsten Hohmann	Germany				2	6
Ralf Souquet	Germany	1	2	3	6	11
Shane Van Boening	United States				4	9
Alex Pagulayan	Canada		1	2	3	7
Francisco Bustamante	Philippines
Nick Varner	United States					3
Ronato Alcano	Philippines				2
Efren Reyes	Philippines		0	1		7
Takeshi Okumura	Japan					5
Wu Jia-qing	China
Francisco Sánchez Ruiz	Spain					4
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
Joshua Filler	Germany
Daryl Peach	England					3
Yukio Akakariyama	Japan					1
Kuo Po-cheng	Chinese Taipei	0	2	2	3	5
Lee Kun-fang	Chinese Taipei		1	1	2	4
Eklent Kaçi	Albania					2
Tom Storm	Sweden					4
Chang Jung-lin	Chinese Taipei				1
Dallas West	United States
Jeremy Jones	United States
Antonio Gabica	Philippines					3
Omar Al-Shaheen	Kuwait
Chang Hao-ping	Chinese Taipei					2
Mohammad Soufi	Syria
Li Hewen	China
Roberto Gomez	Philippines
Bobby Hunter	United States					1
Chang Pei-wei	Chinese Taipei
Ismael Páez	Mexico
Jeff Carter	United States
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.

See also

• Cue sports portal

External links

• World Pool-Billiard Association