By: Erik Hjorleifson
The 2016 World Championships are now in the books and the final player standing. Albin Ouschan from Austria has become to my knowledge the second youngest world champion next to Wu Jiaqing. 128 of the world best players assembled in Qatar to compete for the most prestigious title in men's 9 ball. This year would see the first time since the early 2000s that the nine ball would be moved to the spot. Darren Appleton predicted in one of his facebook live broadcasts that the Europeans would have a good shot at the title because of their experience in breaking with the nine on the spot at euro tour events. Although only one of the final four was European his prediction would prove to be true.
The first player to make a statement towards his run for the title was Jayson Shaw from Scotland. He defeated the defending champion Ko Pin Yi in the round of 64 and tournament favourite Dennis Orcollo in the round of 32. He advanced all the way to the quarter finals before losing to eventual champion Albin Ouschan. Dennis Grabe and Alex Kazakis also had breakout performances ending up in the quarter final rounds.
The semi finals would feature newly invigorated Alex Pagulayan who had his best performance at the World Championships since winning it in 2004. He would face Albin Ouschan from Austria the 2015 China Open champion and the 2014 runner up at the world championships. I was able to watch the first few games of this match and Pagulayan made a couple spectacular shots to take a 3 1 lead. In the 5th game Alex had a one ball skid on him and that seemed to turn the tide. As he made a few errors from there and went on to lose the match 11 4. In the other semi final Shane Van Boening booked his spot in the final for the second year in a row and after years of struggling overseas he has become a perennial threat.
In the final SVB made some critical errors and never really gained momementum in this match. The young Austrian who already has world final experience took full advantage going to win with ease 13-6.
There will always be critics whenever a major event like this happens but the one thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb is the prize money. The cost of travel is very high and the $40 000 is somewhere in the ball park but the rest of the prize money is pitiful. Assuming players are paying their own expense only 8 of 128 are turning a profit and really only 2 of those 8 are turning a good profit.
In my opinion and i'm sure in any full time players opinion this is completely unacceptable. The most obvious way to create revenue for the prize money is to get the championships back on global tv and I sincerely hope that the WPA creates a requirement for the promoters to do so when they start a new contract. Frankly the latest inception since the tournament has been in Qatar has been an embarassment and under no circumstances do I believe that hey should be allowed to promote the World Championships in the future.
Top 5 Pay Outs:
1. Albin Ouschan $40,000
2. Shane Van Boening $20,000
3/4th. Alex Pagulayan $8,000
Kevin Cheng $8,000
5th. Alex Kazakis, Jayson Shaw, Ko Ping Chung $5,000
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