By: Erik Hjorleifson
The World Cup of Pool held in London, England came to a close this past Sunday. The tournament featured 32 teams in a Scotch Doubles format. The event was a single knockout with the first two rounds being a race to 7, the quarter and semi finals were race to 9 and the final was a single race to 10 for the championship honors. The first round saw some tournament favourites taking an early exit including Canada, U.S.A, China and Germany.
Round two saw some exciting matches including a hill-hill thriller between Japan and Holland which saw the 2014 Runner-up Holland relegated to the bleachers. The team of England B would also begin their impressive march to the final defeating a strong Filipino side of Carlo Biado and Warren Kiamco by a score of 7-4 marking the earliest exit by a Filipino team in history.
The Quarter finals featured:
England A vs Romania
Chinese Taipei vs Austria
Japan vs Qatar
England B vs Finland
The Quarter finals featured 2 less experienced teams in Qatar and Romania and they fell by 9-4 and 9-3 score lines respectively. The other two matches could have gone either way and England B had their second impressive win of the tournament over past champions Finland defeating them by a score of 9-7. The quarter finals also saw Chinese Taipei which featured Ko Pin Yi fresh off his victory at the world 9-ball championships against team Austria which included breakout star Albin Ouschan, Taipei would take the match this time by a 9-5 score.
The semi finals were both closely contested affairs which saw Chinese Taipei advancing over 2014 Champion England A with a 9-6 win and England B which featured Mark Gray and Darryl Peach continued there fairy tale tournament defeating Japan 9-7 ending a strong showing from the Japanese side.
The final would feature two touring veterans in Gray and Peach against two of the most successful players in the world from Taipei Chang Yu Lung and Ko Pin Yi. England would obviously be the crowd favorite with the tournament being held in England and they were able to get off to a good start with a 5-2 lead. In game 8 the first crack in the armour for the English side came as Gray miscued on the 8 allowing Taipei to bring it back to 5-3. From there Taipei tied the match at 7-7 and got to the hill first at 9-8, England had a chance to make it hill hill but it was not to be and the team from Taiwan became the 2015 champions. This title adds to Taipei team member Ko Pin Yi's resume for the 2015 season which is unrivaled in the history of billiards he is now the current World 9-ball, World 10 ball and World Cup of Pool Champion, pretty amazing if you think about it.
Final Results:
Chinese Taipei $60 000
England B $30 000
England A $15 000
Japan
Qatar $9000
Romania
Austria
Finland
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