Chezka Centeno won the 2026 Oneida WPA Women's World 8-Ball Championship on Sunday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, beating Great Britain's Kelly "KwikFire" Fisher 9-6 in the final, and the moment the last ball dropped, the composure that carried her through five days of world-class pool gave way. Less than three months after the passing of her mother, Josephine, the Filipina broke into tears and dedicated the title on the spot: "I dedicate this to my mom." Afterward she wrote simply, "Ma, I did it! This is for you."

The pool itself was worthy of the emotion. Centeno came through a 64-player field representing 23 nations at the Oneida Casino Hotel, beating Chinese Taipei's Wei Tzu-Chien 8-5 in the semifinal before holding off Fisher, one of the most decorated players in the history of the women's game, in a final that had brilliance from both ends of the table. It is Centeno's third WPA world title, joining her Women's World 10-Ball crowns from 2023 and 2025, and it carries a redemption note: a year ago in this same building she lost the inaugural Women's World 8-Ball final to Jasmin Ouschan on the hill.

There's no rest in the schedule. Centeno flies from Green Bay to Rome, where the WPA Women's World 10-Ball Championship begins Friday and she's the defending champion. Win there and she'd hold two world titles simultaneously, with three of the last four contested. The conversation about the best women's player in the world right now is getting shorter.

🔗 Full Story. 🔗 Another take.

Nobody in pool had a stranger week than Justin Bergman, and it all happened in one building. On Wednesday he lost $100,000 to Tom Cousins at Side Pockets in Blue Springs. On Saturday night, in the same room, Ultimate Pool USA announced him as the second inductee in their Hall of Fame, joining David Matlock, with the organization calling him their most successful Shootout player and a major force in their growth. And hours after the announcement, he beat Joven Bustamante in a dramatic six-ball shootout to win the Kansas City 10-Ball Showdown, completing the full set: Bergman has now won every event Ultimate Pool USA offers.

The 10-Ball Showdown was one of six titles decided at the Kansas City Open, which ran July 23-26 on Brunswick Tournament Elite tables and drew a field spanning Hall of Famers to juniors. Roberto Gomez edged Dennis Hatch 6-5 to win the Shootout. Hatch got his trophy anyway, taking the Mixed Pairs with partner Charlie Simpson over Sky Woodward and Tatum Cutting. England's Amy Beauchamp, a six-time world champion in the English game, edged Cutting 5-4 for the Women's Open in her first UP USA appearance. And in the main event, Peru's Gerson Martinez Boza beat Bergman 5-3 in the final, making it back-to-back UP USA Open titles for the young Peruvian after his Florida Open win in May.

The junior story will sound familiar by now: Hayden Ernst won the Junior Open, beating England's Cohan Bradford 6-4. That's the same Maverick who swept golds at the BEF Junior Nationals and beat Rodney Morris in a pro bracket in Dubuque three weeks ago. The month American pool's juniors are having keeps getting longer. The weekend also featured the Rocket Runout exhibition, with Rodney Morris facing a challenge from Dennis Hatch.

🔗 Full Story

The regional tours stayed busy. Michael Philip Piedad won the Open 9-Ball at Jersey Girl Billiards' Rack Attack in Vernon, Connecticut, where Ashley Benoit took the women's title and teamed with Rachel Lang to win the doubles. Kathie MacDonald went undefeated to win NWPA Tour Stop 4 in Kennewick, Washington. "California Kim" Davenport went undefeated to claim Rack Race Stop 15 in Aiken, South Carolina. And Landon Hollingsworth went undefeated before splitting top prizes with McClure at the Q City 9-Ball stop in Inman.

🔗 Read more. 🔗 And more.

Money matches and the gambling side of pool

Highly Anticipated Game at Buffalo's. Tony "T-Rex" Chohan and Gabe “The Ninja” Martinez put $50,000 each on the line this week at the World Famous Buffalo's Billiards in New Orleans, $25,000 per player per set, in a two-day, two-discipline showdown streamed on PoolActionTV pay-per-view. The structure was built for an argument: one set of 10-Ball, race to 25 played even, and one set of One Pocket, race to 9 with Martinez getting a 10-7 spot, with a live coin flip deciding which game went first. The pre-match consensus in the forums was that each man owned one game, Martinez the 10-Ball and Chohan the One Pocket, and then both days ran exactly backwards. Monday's flip came up 10-Ball, Martinez's game, and Chohan won the set, closing it out with a clutch runout in the final game. Tuesday, Chohan sat down at his best game, in the house where he's the resident pro and a three-time Buffalo's Pro One Pocket champion, and Martinez ran away with it 9-4 behind the 10-7 spot. After two days, the $100,000 washing out to a dead-even split. Jeff Padilla, Ian Jones, Larry Schwartz, and Billy Incardona rotated through the booth, and the only thing settled by the end was that this one needs a rubber match.

How Martinez got there. The Buffalo's game didn't come out of nowhere. Martinez has spent 2026 working his way through the sport's respected names and hasn't been losing much. He split sets with Chip Compton. He beat Little John. And on July 17-18, in a two-day 9-ball race to 50 under old school rules for a winner-take-all purse of $20,000-plus, he took apart BCA Hall of Famer Johnny "The Scorpion" Archer, and won it badly enough that the aftermath became its own story. Archer's frustration boiled over when it ended, and the video made the rounds fast (see Watch This below). Gabe Martinez is one of the action players of the summer, and the line on him is getting shorter every week.

Cousins takes the $100K. Tom Cousins beat Justin Bergman 30-25 in the six-figure main event at Side Pockets in Blue Springs, Missouri on July 22, settling the biggest confirmed money match of the American summer. The match was played the Ultimate Pool way: 8-ball on a 7-foot Brunswick Tournament Elite, international rules, 30-second shot clock, alternate breaks, with the CueXTV pay-per-view carrying it and a commentary booth that included Johnny Archer and Dennis Hatch. The stats say Bergman played well enough to win most nights. He ran 11 break-and-runs and ran out at a 61 percent clip after his own successful breaks. Cousins simply broke better and stayed a rack or two ahead through the long middle of a match that never let Bergman's national-title momentum from Dubuque translate. For Cousins, it's a statement that the barbox game remains his territory no matter what his rival wins elsewhere, and it set the table for the KC Open week that followed in the same building.

And on the undercard. James Cabal closed out his 10-ball match against Oscar Dominguez, taking it with the 8, 9, 10, and five games on the wire.

🔗 Tony v Gabe. 🔗 Bergman v Cousins.

The end of the Archer vs. Martinez match is the two minutes of pool video everybody sent each other this month. Martinez had just beaten a Hall of Famer at his own rules, and Archer did not take it quietly. Whatever you think about how it was handled, it's the rawest thing the action scene has produced all summer, and it's worth watching once.

Vice City Classic | Classic Billiards, Lauderhill, FL | July 29-August 2 | $71,200 WNT Ranking | starts today!

WPA Women's World 10-Ball Championship | Rome, Italy | July 31-August 6 | Centeno defending, alongside the Rome Wheelchair Open and a women's doubles event

Florida Open Pool Championship | Caribe Royale Resort, Orlando | August 4-9 | $225,000 Matchroom Major, Yapp defending

WPA Heyball World Championships | Pune, India | August 12-15

US Open Pool Championship | Embassy Suites, Frisco, TX | August 25-30 | $500,000 Matchroom Major, live on ESPN+ | 27 days out

🔗 Matchroom Schedule. 🔗 WPBA Schedule. 🔗 AZB Full Schedule

Championship season is here. Rome opens Friday with Centeno chasing a second simultaneous world title. The Florida Open runs next week with Yapp defending the first Major of the American stretch. And Frisco is 27 days out, with something new layered on top of the bracket this year: the qualification races. Matchroom has confirmed the cutoffs for both the Reyes Cup and the Mosconi Cup, which means every ranking event between now and the fall is doing double duty. Players aren't just chasing checks anymore; they're chasing roster spots, and the speculation about who makes Team USA and Team Philippines is already the loudest conversation in the forums and the Facebook groups.

That's the lens for the next month of pool. Vice City this week and the Florida Open next week are important auditions. Gorst wants his US Open back and a spot at the top of the Team USA conversation. Bergman just lived a Hall of Fame induction and a six-figure loss in the same building in the same week, and remains squarely in the Mosconi picture. And somewhere in the Vice City field this week is a player nobody is talking about yet who'll force his way into the conversation by Sunday. The road to Frisco, Manila, and Orlando all runs through the same few tables. We'll be watching all of it.

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