Whilst out in the Isle of Man I didn’t really have chance to catch up with the goings on all over the world in terms of Cue Sports.
Last week there was a lot of action with some fantastic results for the sport.
The first one is Ricky Walden’s first World Ranking title in defeating Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-8 in the Shanghai Masters last Sunday. This is great news for the 25-year-old Walden, who we caught up with in winning the Belgium Open the week before. It looks like a solid move in the right direction for the Chester born world number 35, and this win has put him provisionally at number 17. Kicking on for the rest of the season will be his priority and a spot in the elite top 16 beckons.
The second result I must mention is the World 10-ball Championships. This event featuring the world’s best pool players was held out in the Phillipines with over 30 countries represented. In addition it had live TV coverage in Asia and a $400,000 prize fund. So why does nobody outside the industry realise that Britain has another world champion?
That’s right, Pontefract’s Darren Appleton won the title 13-11 against Chia-Ching Wu of Taipei. It is one of the most deserved wins on the curcuit and CueSport TV would like to offer our biggest congratulations to Darren on his victory.
Appleton is one of the hardest working professionals on the pool circuit and is becoming feared in every corner of the globe, this win cements his status as one of the top players in the world. He is a very likable character that truly believes in the sport he plays. He works so hard on the table and has put in many hours over the last couple of years honing his skills on the larger American tables (his background is of course English Pool). Once again well done Darren!
This win means that Britain now has two of the four available world titles and Europe has all 4!
- World 9-ball Champion: Daryl Peach – England
- World 10-ball Champion: Darren Appleton – England
- World 8-ball Champion: Ralf Souquet – Germany
- World 14.1 Champion: Niels Feijen – Holland
With this is further solidifies the UK’s position within the global pool scene, we now have two world champions, the European number 1 and at the time of writing England have reached the semi-finals of the World Cup of Pool, global domination is certainly on the cards, and the future also looks bright with the likes of Phil Burford, Jayson Shaw and Thomas Ainsworth-Smith making there way up the rankings as well.
