Sunday lunchtime brought the biggest pool announcement in months, and it came before a ball had been struck in Makati. Belfast's morning session has gone down to the wire, Landywood is into its knockouts and Sydney has its last-16 draw. Here's the midday picture.
Bahrain — the Crown Jewel finds a new home
The World Pool Championship is staying in the Middle East. Matchroom confirmed late this morning that the event will be played at Exhibition World Bahrain from 5 to 10 April 2027, with a $1,000,000 prize fund and a 128-player field. It's the first time the Kingdom has staged it.
The deal is a multi-year memorandum of understanding between Matchroom Pool and the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority, run with the Bahrain Billiard Sports and Darts Federation. Exhibition World Bahrain hosted this year's Bahrain Darts Masters. The World Nineball Tour promises 223 matches over six days. Broadcast partners, tickets and the format will follow.
It ends six months of uncertainty. The ten-year Saudi deal, meant to run to 2033, was scrapped in April. At the time the World Nineball Tour said the event would return this year somewhere new, with the million-dollar purse intact. That has now slipped to next spring.
Carlo Biado, who beat Fedor Gorst 15–13 in the 2025 final, is the defending champion. "I can't wait to defend my title there," he said, "and I'd love to become a three-time world champion in the Kingdom and bring the trophy home to the Philippines once again." Matchroom Multi Sport chief executive Emily Frazer said "the whole world will be watching".
Makati — the last night begins
First, Biado has a Reyes Cup to save. Team Asia trail the Rest of the World 9–4 going into the final session at Makati Coliseum. It started at 7pm in Manila, which is noon UK time. First to 11 wins, so Ralf Souquet's side need two more points and Asia need seven.
Absolute Pool lists the final-day card like this:
- Team match
- Robbie Capito & Duong Quoc Hoang v Francisco Sánchez Ruiz & Shane Van Boening
- Carlo Biado v Joshua Filler
- Biado & AJ Manas v Filler & Van Boening
- Capito v Fedor Gorst
That's the Biado–Filler singles that never happened last night, because the Rest of the World needed only four matches on day three. If the visitors win the first two tonight, it may never happen at all. No scores had been posted when we went to press. It's live on WNT TV and ESPN+, and on One Sports in the Philippines, where the broadcaster reported fans already streaming into the Coliseum before the start.
Landywood — Sitwala and Sethi collide in the last 16
The English Open billiards has moved into its knockouts, and the draw has thrown up an all-Indian tie. Dhruv Sitwala, who met David Causier in last year's world final, made breaks of 112 and 130 in a 397–89 win over Terry Azor in the last 32. His reward is Geet Sethi, who had a bye.
Last-32 results, per the World Billiards results service:
- Wayne Doyle 321–114 Martin Goodwill (break of 97)
- Dhruv Sitwala 397–89 Terry Azor (112, 130)
- Jonathan Marwood 226–160 Chris Mitchell
- Rupesh Shah 206–140 Darren Clark
- Nalin Patel 212–147 Mark Hirst
- Rishabh Thakkar 165–151 Nathan Mann
- Ryan Mears 234–218 Devendra Joshi
- Chris Taylor 200–141 Chris Coumbe
The last 16 is Causier v Doyle, Sitwala v Sethi, Peter Sheehan v Marwood, Shah v Peter Gilchrist, Robert Hall v Patel, Thakkar v Dhvaj Haria, Christian Kirk v Mears and Taylor v Pankaj Advani. None had been scored at the time of writing. The final is later today, with the World Championship at the same club from tomorrow.
Belfast — Wang Xinbo pushes Si to the edge
The Northern Ireland Open's opening session is going the distance. As we went to press, Wang Xinbo led Si Jiahui 3–2 in their best-of-seven, and Xiao Guodong led Sam Craigie 3–2, with both matches still at the table. The WPBSA pointed out this morning that Wang reached the finals of both the junior and open World Snooker Federation Championships earlier this year, at the age of 18.
Jack Lisowski's defence against Huang Jiahao starts at 1pm, along with Thepchaiya Un-Nooh v Aaron Hill. Mark Selby v Louis Heathcote follows at around 3pm. Tonight, snooker's English Open champion Ali Carter, who leads the Home Nations bonus race, plays Xu Si, and Shaun Murphy v Liam Davies closes the day. We've seen no fresh news on Ronnie O'Sullivan this morning, and he's still listed for Monday afternoon against Cheung Ka Wai.
Sydney — the last 16 is set
The Australian Women's Open knockout draw is out, and the last-16 matches start at midnight UK time:
- Mink Nutcharut v Jazmin Brown
- Theresa Whitten v Narucha Phoemphul
- Cheung Yee Ting v Joey Tohme
- Lau Yuk Fan v Anupama Ramachandran
- Reanne Evans v Xuejun Alice Wu
- So Man Yan v Kenny Chandra
- Jessica Woods v Carlie Tait
- Agnes Kimura v Ng On-yee
Group E surprise Kenny Chandra now faces So Man Yan, and Evans meets Alice Wu, who was second to Mink in Group A.
Goyang — Kim chases twenty, Vietnam chases a third
The LPBA's last 128 got under way at KINTEX this morning UK time. Kim Ga-young was first on at 4:20pm local (8:20am UK) as she tries to become the first player in Korean pro billiards to reach 20 titles. Star News notes that since winning the season opener she has gone runner-up, last 16 and last eight. Jung Su-bin, who won the last event, starts tomorrow. On the men's side, Kukinews says the talk is of a Vietnamese hat-trick: Vietnamese players won the last two PBA events, the most recent of them Quoc Nguyen. He opens on Wednesday against a wildcard.
Coming up
- Qatar World Cup of Pool 10-Ball: the Qatar federation says 256 players from 44 countries will be at the Ezdan Plus Hotel in Doha. Stage one runs 19–24 October, with 16 places up for grabs in a 128-player final stage (24–29 October). Five Qataris are already through to it, including Ali Al Obaidli.
- World Billiards Championship: Landywood, Monday 19 to Thursday 22 October.
- Australian Women's Open knockouts: overnight tonight and Tuesday, with results on WPBSA SnookerScores.
Feature image: “Efren Reyes in the World 9-Ball Pool Championship (2)” by Doha Stadium Plus Qatar (picture by Vinod Divakaran), via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 2.0.
