Shane Van Boening returned to the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando for a second consecutive Florida Open final and left with the trophy that got away from him a year ago, beating Greece's Alexander Kazakis 13-5 on August 9 for his first Florida Open title and another Matchroom major on a resume that already holds five US Opens.

The route there is the part worth sitting with. Van Boening beat Ralf Souquet 10-5, Albin Ouschan 10-6, Joshua Filler 10-7, Francisco Sánchez Ruiz 10-6 and Eklent Kaçi 11-6 before the final, which is four former world champions in succession and about as unforgiving a path to a final four as this tour produces. He named the Filler match as the turn. "After I beat Josh in the Last 16, I knew I had a real chance to go all the way," he said. "From that point, I just stayed focused and trusted my game."

The final was decided earlier than 13-5 suggests. Van Boening took the opening two racks, gave one back in the third, then restored the cushion when a failed Kazakis safety in the fourth handed him the table at 3-1. A missed 3-ball in the eighth let the Greek back in, and a bank shot kept the rack alive long enough for him to clear to 5-3, but the answer came straight back. At 6-3 Van Boening jumped out of a Kazakis safety and ran out. At 8-3 Kazakis had another look and missed the 9-ball. The win paid $40,000 against $18,000 for the runner-up.

The redemption line writes itself and it is worth spelling out, because the man who beat him in last year's final had a very different week. Aloysius Yapp arrived in Orlando as the newly crowned world number one, lost his opening match 9-5 to BJ Ussery, fought back through the field with a 9-3 over Kristian Dimitrov and a 9-0 over Paul Song, and then ran into Peru's Cristopher Tevez, who ended the title defense 10-6 in the Last 64. Reigning world champion Carlo Biado went out the same day.

Van Boening now sits on top of the Team USA Mosconi Cup standings with the Cup returning to this same building in November, and he leads the field into Yuma on Wednesday.

🔗 Full Story · 🔗 The Semis · 🔗 Nerdy Break Stats

Margarita Fefilova Styer is the 2026 Banca del Fucino WPA Women's World 10-Ball Champion, beating Chezka Centeno in a three-part final at the Rome Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria and closing the decider 4-0. The title paid $55,000 out of a $200,000 prize fund, from a field of 64 players representing 21 nations. This marks a long her first World Championship and caps a long and dedicated journey of hard work. Check out her own words from the Insta post, she’s so grateful. What a rockstar.

The story on the other side of the table is nearly as big. Centeno flew into Rome days after winning the WPA Women's World 8-Ball Championship in Green Bay, where she beat Kelly Fisher 9-6 and dedicated the title to her mother, and she arrived chasing a second world crown inside a week. She got to the last table and could not close the third set. Two world finals in seven days, one title, and a stretch of form nobody else in the women's game is matching right now.

The Rome week carried a second title. Kristina Tkach and Chou Chieh-Yu won the inaugural Fujifilm Women's Doubles Master Showdown on the same set of tables, beating Seo Seoa and Savannah Easton 2-0 in the final after getting past Silviana Lu and Chihiro Muramatsu 2-1 in the semis.

🔗 Full Story · 🔗 The Doubles

Yapp got the #1 ranking, then got the week off. Aloysius Yapp was crowned World Nineball Tour number one on August 3 after becoming the first player to win three consecutive Matchroom Open Majors, taking the 2025 UK Open, the inaugural Florida Open and the US Open. The coronation bought him nothing in Orlando, where he was gone by the Last 64.

Kaçi wins Vice City, Hoang wins the match everyone talked about. Kledio Kaçi took the Vice City Classic at Classic Billiards in Lauderhill, a 106-player WNT ranking event run July 29 through August 2, beating Mickey Krause in the final. Seven of the world's top ten were entered. The match people are still replaying came earlier, when Vietnam's Duong Quoc Hoang came back on Joshua Filler to reach the round of 16. Thorsten Hohmann finished ninth after five wins. We are holding the prize fund figure until the listings agree.

Cibart runs the table in Petaluma. Kelly Cibart of Chico went undefeated to win stop 4 of the West Coast Women's Tour on August 1 at Buffalo Billiards, 38 entries from California and Oregon playing for $1,930. She closed four straight hill-hill matches, including a 5-4 over Khanh Ngo after trailing 3-0. In the hot seat match she faced Jackie Karol, who coached her for roughly eight years in Chico. Neither knew the other had entered and the two had not seen each other in seven years.

KAMUI re-ups with the WNT. A new multi-year agreement keeps KAMUI as Official Tip Partner of the World Nineball Tour, extending a relationship with Matchroom events that dates to 2019, with an Official WNT Tip promised in the coming months. From behind a counter, the tip is the part that matters more than the logo.

talkSPORT and the WNT, details pending. The Tour published an announcement on August 3 headlined for talkSPORT showcasing WNT USA events. We have not been able to read the full release, so the scope, the events covered and how American viewers would get it are all open. We will report the specifics when they are confirmed.

Money matches and the gambling side of pool

Two sets and one shot people are still arguing about. Laz Martinez and Jeff De Luna played two sets of 10-ball at $1,500 apiece Tuesday night at Rydas Action Spot in San Antonio, and De Luna took both, 15-10 and then 15-13. Laz and his brother Gabe Martinez are house-pros at Ryda’s and have been getting into lots of action this year, brining top talent to the Alamo City to play.

The moment came in the first set. Laz had the 1-ball hanging in the jaws and went rail first instead of shooting it straight in. He made it, and De Luna called it dead on the grounds that a kick has to be called. The clip has been going around since.

Whether he is right depends on whose book you open. The WPA says details like cushions struck are irrelevant if the ball and pocket were obvious. The UPA says a kick has to be called or it is a miss. In an action match, some players would have quit Jeff on the spot and never gambled him again for the sucker call.

🔗 Watch the Shot

Van Boening against Francisco Sánchez Ruiz in the Florida Open quarterfinal is the match to pull up from this run. It is the one where the bracket stopped being survivable and Van Boening kept playing like it was, and it sits right in the middle of the four-world-champions stretch that made the title.

Arizona Open Pool Championship | Quechan Casino Resort, Yuma, AZ | August 13-16 | $125,000 WNT Major | Van Boening leads the field | starts tomorrow

Phoenix Open | Metro Sportz Bar & Billiards, Phoenix, AZ | August 18-22 | $71,200 WNT Ranking | 6 days out

US Open Pool Championship | Embassy Suites, Frisco, TX | August 25-30 | $500,000 Matchroom Major | Yapp defending, new venue | 13 days out

53rd Annual Texas Open 9-Ball and 1Pkt | Skinny Bob's Billiards, Round Rock, TX | August 31-September 7 | 19 days out

APA World Pool Championships | Westgate Las Vegas | through August 15 | champions decided after this issue

🔗 Matchroom Schedule · 🔗 AZB Full Schedule

Thirteen days from now the US Open sets up in Frisco, and a week after it breaks down the Texas Open runs its 53rd edition ninety minutes south at Skinny Bob's. Half a million dollars on one end of that stretch and a room full of Texas regulars on the other, inside three weeks, inside one state.

That is not a coincidence so much as a consequence. Matchroom moved the US Open to Texas because Texas turns out, and the same thing that makes a 53-year-old regional open still worth running is what makes a $500,000 major work in Frisco. Van Boening will be there chasing a sixth. Yapp will be there defending, and he has had two weeks to think about how Orlando went. The road runs through Texas this month, and for once that is the whole story rather than a local footnote.

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