World Pool Masters: Shane Van Boening Makes History Once Again

By: Markus Noé

Sunday August 16th at the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester, England Shane Van Boening once again made history. There have been a few multiple winners of the World Pool Masters, most of them going to Ralf Souquet who has collected 6 titles over the years. However no one has won the title in consecutive years, that is until SVB did it yesterday.

This years title defense got off to a shaky start as SVB had to play Canadian John Morra in the first round. Morra has been having a career year with many top finishes at some of the most prestigious tournaments in the world. This was also Morra's first time representing Canada since the format changed to 16 player invite only. 

In this match SVB got off to a bad start rattling the 9 in the very first rack, allowing Morra to take the early lead. Taking advantages of some more uncharacteristic mistakes by the defending champion Morra pushed his lead to 5-2. This is when SVB began to charge back and tied the match at 5-5. In this rack it felt it was a must win for Morra. After a miss by SVB Morra began to run out and had to use the "bridge" which always ads a degree of difficulty to any shot. Morra was trying to draw for shape on the 7 ball which was slightly blocked by the 8 ball. Unfortunately he came up short on his position and looked to be in very big trouble, but before you could blink he sent the cue ball in the the side rail and kicked the 7 ball into the corner and came around the table for perfect position and ran out the rack. 

This would be the last rack Morra would secure as SVB went up 7-6 before a missed 2 ball by Morra ended the match 8-6. From here SVB went on virtually unchallenged beating Waleed Majid 8-5 in the Quarter-Finals. In the Semi-Final match against Liu Haitao, SVB put together his most dominating performance in the tournament. Here he wins 8-0 with seven break and runs and up 2-0 he ran out the last six games. 

This set up a very interesting match-up between two of the most accomplished 9 Ball players in the last decade, Shane Van Boening and Darren Appleton.  By the time I was able to tune into the stream it was already 3-0 for SVB. Appleton did gain some momentum wining the next two racks, but two bad misses ended his hopes for the title this year. From this point SVB went on to win each rack in a flurry of break and runs and two golden breaks. The final rack had Van Boening running into a problem as the 2 and the 6 ball were tied together with the 9 ball about a foot a away. He did what most players would do while enjoying a big lead and threw caution to the wind and hit the two ball square sending the 6 ball a few rails and into the corner pocket. This also lined up an impossible to miss 2-9 carom to secure his second consecutive World Pool Masters title.

Last year SVB silenced a lot of his critics by winning this title for the first time, as it was also his first major win overseas. Personally I am not sure that winning overseas was ever a problem because the level of talent is higher in Europe and Asia. I think it has more to do with that SVB is most comfortable playing a winner breaks format on Diamond tables, a format in which it is clear he is the best in the world at. For major events such as the China Open and the last World 10 Ball Championship played in the Philippines, the conditions are not nearly as pristine and are often alternative break. For many "purists" or "haters" until he wins a World Championship or China Open alternate break and not on Diamond tables there will always be a hint of doubt before dubbing him the best in the world. Next month in Qatar at the World 9 Ball Championship he will once again have a chance to silence his critics.