I Have of course been watching Wimbledon during the course of the last week and particularly liked the assured performance from the only British hope Andy Murray yesterday.
It got me thinking about the structure and model of professional Tennis, something I have always been an advocate of.
Professional Tennis players are selected for tournaments (of which there are many!) based on ranking. I am wonderng whether it is about time that professional pool moved to this model?
It would mean World Ranking points being awarded for every tournament. The amount of ranking points would be determined by the quality of the tournament, factors like prize money, number of high ranked players and media coverage would of curse come into account.
I am sure it could work though if the WPA took the initiative, your thoughts?
The most dominant male and females players of the last 15 years in the USA, Johnny Archer and Alison Fisher, have been given BCA Hall of Fame nominations.
Both players will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on June 23rd as part of the BCA International Billiards & Home Recreation Expo held in Las Vegas.
I can’t confirm it (I will have to delve deeeper) but I think Alison Fisher will be the first British player to be inducted into the BCA Hall of Fame.
In a few years we could be seeing the likes of Darren Appleton, Daryl Peach and even Kelly Fisher also receiving this accolade.
The original interview did go out live on CueSport TV, however due to problems with the Internet connection it was not a continuous live stream as it kept breaking down on us!
Shane van Boening is certainly the hottest prospect to have come out of the USA for a number of years and he continues to add the major titles to his resume.
This time he has won the 9-ball division at the Derby City Classic from a field of over 300 players.
In the final Van Boening beat Filipino Lee van Corteza 7-6 to lift the title.
Van Boening picked up $16,000 for his tournament win and en route to the final defeated last years winner Ralf Souquet and Canadian-born Adam Smith.
Britain’s Darren Appleton, who, over the last 12 months has been in the form of his life, last night missed out on repeating the Straight Pool title he won last year at the Derby City Classic.
His opponent on this occasion, Danny Harriman, is well-known for his 14.1 prowess and took a commanding lead in the race-to-100 match.
Appleton never really got going and eventually capitulated 100-41.
To keep the British theme going Darren also reached the last eight of the 9-ball.
Renowned mostly for his 9-ball and Straight Pool John Schmidt has beaten Scott Frost to lift the Derby City Classic One Pocket division 3-1.
The 9-ball division is drawing to a cose with 50 players still competing in round 7.
The straight pool event is down to the last four with some British interest still battling away, World 10-ball Champion Darren Appleton would play World Straight Pool Champion Thorsten Hohmann of Germany in the semi-finals and John Schmidt (told you his game was 14.1) playing Danny Harriman.
The final is at some point today but results are a bit sketchy due to the size of the event and the time difference.
I have just had 6 days without access to the Internet thanks to Talk Talk, however I am now back and available.
Most of you that are in the know will realise that the 11th Annual Derby City Classic is underway in Elizabeth, Indiana (yes I know it’s not Kentucky, but the venue has changed to facilitate a larger tournament).
The annual ‘Hustlers Convention’ - a phrase I have blatantly stolen from Mika Immonen’s Blog - features tournaments in 9-ball, One Pocket and Bank Pool with every notable pro and road player converging on the hotel for 10 days of action.
This year you can watch live action from two sources:
The Action Report are streaming from the TAR Pit, with challenges and money-match ups. Some days are free others are PPV.
Likewise Accu-stats will be producing and streaming coverage of the main event, this is only available on PPV.
I have put the Action Report stream embedded below:
I had always been frustrated about the WPA World Pool rankings as it was never clear which events qualified and what the points criteris were.
Finally though the WPA have announced a new ranking system that currently features 450 players from all qualifying nations.
It is a step i the right direction in order to quell some of the confusion over who is number one and which events qualify. I am sure in time that this system will be tweaked as new events come onto the scene but also as most of the qualifying events are official World Championships in different disciplines.
The new criteria set out by the WPA means that the following needs to be met for an event to be a ranking event:
The event is open to players who are members of WPA affiliated organisations
The tournament carries a minimum of $100,000 added prize money
The new list will take effect from January 2009, however, there are no more qualifying events left in this calendar year so a provisional list has already been released.
The events that qualified from 2008 are as follows:
World 9-ball 2007
World 8-ball 2008
Qatar International 9-ball Open 2008
World 10-ball 2008
US Open 9-ball Championships
World 9-ball 2008 (Not held)
I will post the full list in due course but would just like to say that I feel this is great news, we finally have some clarity and not only that, the WPA reserve the right to alter added money criteria as and when - this could see some events in Europe becoming part of the list.
