Morning all, Reggie here.
Yesterday morning we left the National Shootout at the last-16 stage, with Brennan having seen off Archer again and Waddingham due to meet Atencio. By the time Cherokee went to bed, the whole thing was done and dusted — and the man holding the trophy was not one of the names on the posters. Meanwhile in Nanjing the first International Championship semi-final is a slow, scrappy, tactical arm-wrestle, and the three-cushion big guns finally get their cues out in Yanggu today.
CHEROKEE — DOMINGUEZ TAKES THE NATIONAL SHOOTOUT
Oscar Dominguez is the 2026 Ultimate Pool USA National Shootout champion. He beat Tom Cousins 5–4 in the final at Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort shortly before 11pm Eastern on Wednesday — his fourth win of the day in a single-elimination sprint from sixteen players to one.
And he did it the hard way. Per BilliardNews, the live feed had Cousins 3–0 up in the title match before Dominguez started the comeback.
Cousins had been the story of the night until then. He knocked out Shane Van Boening 6–3 in the quarter-finals and then beat defending champion Craig Waddingham 6–3 in the semis — Waddingham having dropped only eight racks in his first three matches of the week. One rack short of the lot.
Dominguez took the quieter road, but none of it was easy: 5–4 over Eric Charlton in the last 16, 6–3 over Joven Bustamante in the quarters and 5–3 over Declan Brennan in the semis.
Wednesday's results, round by round:
- Last 16: Van Boening 8–4 Manny Perez · Cousins 7–1 Shane McMinn · Chris Melling 5–4 Dennis Hatch · Waddingham 7–4 Jesus Atencio · Bustamante 6–1 Roberto Gomez · Dominguez 5–4 Charlton · Brennan beat Justin Bergman in the deciding shootout after 5–5 · Joe Prince beat Rodney Morris in the deciding shootout after 5–5
- Quarter-finals: Cousins 6–3 Van Boening · Waddingham 8–2 Melling · Dominguez 6–3 Bustamante · Brennan 6–3 Prince
- Semi-finals: Cousins 6–3 Waddingham · Dominguez 5–3 Brennan
- Final: Dominguez 5–4 Cousins
That's Brennan's second shootout tiebreak win of the week, after he did for Johnny Archer on Tuesday. Grand Finals week rolls on today with the National 10-Ball Showdown invitational and the start of the National Open, which runs through to Sunday; the 8-Ball Teams final, worth $112,000 to the winners, is on Saturday.
NANJING — WILSON AND FAN LEVEL AT THE INTERVAL
Don't expect a highlights reel from the opening session of the first International Championship semi-final. Kyren Wilson and Fan Zhengyi are 2–2 at the mid-session interval of their best-of-17, and it has been a grind.
Fan took a messy opener, clearing to the pink after both men had chances come and go. Wilson levelled with a 55, then won a long third frame in which, per TNT Sports' live text, Fan took seven attempts to hit a red out of a snooker and gave away 24 penalty points in the process. Fan answered with a 70 — the best break of the morning so far — to square it up.
Wilson is chasing an eleventh straight win on tour and back-to-back ranking titles after the Northern Ireland Open; Fan is in only his second ranking semi-final. The second session starts at 11:30 GMT, with the winner meeting John Higgins or Chang Bingyu in Saturday's best-of-19 final. Higgins and Chang play their semi on Friday, same session times.
Live on TNT Sports, HBO Max, WST Play and Huya.
YANGGU — THE SEEDS' NEIGHBOURS ARRIVE
The UMB three-cushion World Cup in Yanggu reaches its last qualifying stage today, and it is the round where the heavyweights who weren't seeded straight through finally show up. Per the UMB, Tran Quyet Chien, Peter Ceulemans, Ömer Karakurt, Roland Forthomme and Torbjörn Blomdahl are among those in the arena, playing for main-draw spots alongside the seeded players, Cho Myung-woo, Eddy Merckx and Dick Jaspers among them.
Every match is streamed on Soop, with full results from the UMB and Five & Six. The final is on Sunday.
THE WEEKEND AND BEYOND
- Jackson, Mississippi: the Mississippi 9-Ball Classic, $10,000 guaranteed added, 128-player limit, Friday to Sunday at The Corner Pocket.
- Portland, Maine: JPNEWT's second Queen of the Slate Women's 9-Ball Championship, a WPBA qualifier with $5,000 added, Saturday and Sunday at Forest City Billiards.
- Belcourt, North Dakota: the SkyDancer Casino $25,000-added MPA event is under way and runs to Sunday.
- Ho Chi Minh City: the World Nineball Tour's Universal Open, $63,000, 11–15 November at Sniper Billiards Club — live on WNT TV.
- Leicester: the Champion of Champions starts on Monday, 9–15 November at the Mattioli Arena.
WHERE TO WATCH / LOOK
- Nanjing: TNT Sports, HBO Max, WST Play, Huya — second session from 11:30 GMT
- Cherokee: Ultimate Pool USA on YouTube; brackets on DigitalPool
- Yanggu: Soop; results via the UMB and Five & Six
That's your Thursday morning desk. I'll be back at lunchtime with how Wilson and Fan got on in the second session.
— Reggie
Feature image: “Billard” by No-w-ay in collaboration with H. Caps, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
