If you want to check out numbers 16 to 20, CLICK HERE.
With that said, here are the next five names of this list.
15 | ALBIN OUSCHAN | AUSTRIA
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1990 TO 1999
NONE
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1999 TO PRESENT
WINNER | 1
RUNNER-UP | 1
FINAL FOUR | 0
FINAL EIGHT | 1
ROUND OF 16 | 1
ROUND OF 32 | 1
ROUND OF 64 | 0
In 2013, Ouschan made his WPA 9-Ball Championship debut and
was unable to advance to the knockout stages. The following year, he would lose
the championship to Niels Feijen in just three racks. Then two years later, the
Austrian would capture the crown by defeating American Shane Van Boening. And
the thing about Ouschan is that he’s only 28 and the future looks bright if he
could sustain his career. And yeah, since billiard greatness is somewhat
hereditary, Albin and equally-impressive Jasmine Ouschan became the first
brother and sister team to reach the WPA World 9-Ball Tournament final.
14 | KUO PO-CHENG | CHINESE
TAIPEI
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1990 TO 1999
NONE
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1999 TO PRESENT
WINNER | 0
RUNNER-UP | 2
FINAL FOUR | 1
FINAL EIGHT | 1
ROUND OF 16 | 1
ROUND OF 32 | 0
ROUND OF 64 | 2
Much like most Chinese Taipei cue stars of the early 2000s,
Kuo looks like an innocent face… that will destroy you if given a
chance. Anyway, he was just one rack short from claiming the World 9-Ball
Championship in 2005 against Wu Chia-Ching. The Little Monster would also reach
the 2010 tournament but his chances were derailed by Django Bustamante. Kuo
almost reached the tournament final for the third time in 2004 but stumbled on
another roadblock in the form of eventual winner Alex Pagulayan.
13 | NIELS FEIJEN | THE
NETHERLANDS
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1990 TO 1999
NONE
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1999 TO PRESENT
WINNER | 1
RUNNER-UP | 0
FINAL FOUR | 0
FINAL EIGHT | 1
ROUND OF 16 | 2
ROUND OF 32 | 3
ROUND OF 64 | 5
Dubbed as The Terminator, Niels Feijen has had time on top
of the mountain. After more than a decade of falling short (his best finish at
that point is a Top 8 place in the 2001 WPA World 9-Ball Championship), he
finally won the big time tourney by defeating Albin Ouschan, 13 racks to 10.
Apart from this tourney, Feijen is also a mainstay for Team Europe in the
Mosconi Cup and in 2008, he won against Django Bustamante to capture the World
Straight Pool Championship.
12 | EFREN “BATA” REYES | PHILIPPINES
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1990 TO 1999
NONE
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1999 TO PRESENT
WINNER | 1
RUNNER-UP | 0
FINAL FOUR | 0
FINAL EIGHT | 1
ROUND OF 16 | 2
ROUND OF 32 | 3
ROUND OF 64 | 5
Hailed by many as the greatest pool player to revolutionize
the sport, Efren Reyes is the inaugural winner of the current WPA World 9-Ball
Championship version. Showtime Efren against the robotic Chang Hao-Ping in 1999
could have been one key to the eventual merger of the two events. With that
said, can you imagine a young Magician in this tourney? This is one of the
biggest what-ifs of Reyes’ legendary career because it was evident during the
early 2000s that he’d rather push new blood because he had nothing else to
prove in the sport. The fact that Reyes was already 45 years old at the time of
his win says something about his future World 9-Ball title battles. His
contemporaries like Nick Varner, Mike Lebron, Kim Davenport, and Amang Parica
among others were on the verge of retirement when the tourney rolled through. In
fact, the only other time The Magician made it past the Round of 16 was when he
lost to bosom buddy Django Bustamante in the 2002 edition. In some instances, it
felt as if Reyes would rather impress the crowd with his trick shots than
winning the event.
11 | SHANE VAN BOENING | USA
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1990 TO 1999
NONE
WPA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP | 1999 TO PRESENT
WINNER | 0
RUNNER-UP | 2
FINAL FOUR | 1
FINAL EIGHT | 2
ROUND OF 16 | 0
ROUND OF 32 | 3
ROUND OF 64 | 0
The South Dakota Kid is another player that is poised to
take the world of pool into the future. The third generation cue artist is
hearing-impaired but as per career, this is not an issue. If you speak of his
mainland USA accomplishments, Shane has won the US Open 9-Ball Championships a
record of five times. And in the last five WPA World 9-Ball Championships, Van
Boening has had two runner-ups, one final four, and one big eight finish. In
2015, he became the last hurdle to Ko Pin-Yi’s title and a year later, he
became the last person Albin Ouschan faced en route to his title. In the 2018
edition, he made the semifinal but fell to defending champion and eventual
runner-up Carlo Biado.
TO BE CONTINUED.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment