Photo: Matchroom Multi Sport

The third Roobet Reyes Cup opens Thursday at Makati Coliseum in Metro Manila, and for the first time the event arrives with a genuine question attached to it. Team Asia has won both previous editions without much suspense, beating Team Europe 11-6 at Ninoy Aquino Stadium in the 2024 inaugural and then running over the first Team Rest of the World 11-3 a year ago. This time Asia is defending with two rookies in a five-man lineup, and the side trying to take the cup off them is the strongest group the Rest of the World has sent.

Francisco "Django" Bustamante captains Asia again. He kept three players from last year's winning team: reigning world champion Carlo Biado, 2026 Premier League Pool champion Duong Quoc Hoang of Vietnam, and AJ Manas, who was named MVP on his Reyes Cup debut in 2025 and shared the clinching match with Biado, who pocketed the winning nine. The two debutants are Robbie Capito of Hong Kong, runner-up at this year's US Open, and 18-year-old Indonesian Albert Januarta, who reached the Premier League Pool semifinals in February and the quarterfinals in both Florida and Arizona in August. The name missing from that list is Aloysius Yapp, the 2024 MVP and the current world number one, whom Bustamante passed over for Manas and Januarta with his captain's picks, with Duong taking the World Nineball Tour wildcard.

Ralf Souquet replaced Jeremy Jones as Rest of the World captain after last year's 11-3 defeat, and his roster reads like a Mosconi Cup all-star team. Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, the two-time US Open champion, and Fedor Gorst return from the 2025 side. They are joined by three debutants: Shane Van Boening, who won the Florida Open in August and is weeks away from a record 20th consecutive Mosconi Cup appearance; Joshua Filler, who comes to Manila straight off a Pro Billiard Series title in Bali; and Serbia's Aleksa Pecelj, who won the Phoenix Open, finished second in Arizona and reached the US Open semifinals in a single August and took the WNT wildcard on the strength of it. Van Boening and Filler have spent their careers on opposite sides of the Mosconi Cup. In Makati they share a bench.

The connections between the two rosters run deep. Capito and Sanchez Ruiz met in the US Open final two months ago. Duong and Sanchez Ruiz met in the Premier League Pool final in February. Biado beat Gorst for the 2025 world championship. And six of the ten players, Biado, Manas, Capito, Januarta, Sanchez Ruiz and Filler, were in Bali last week for the Pro Billiard Series, where Filler beat Biado and Sanchez Ruiz in consecutive straight-set matches on the way to the Bali Open title and Sanchez Ruiz beat Biado and Manas in the doubles world championship final. Those results are fresh for everyone involved.

The format mirrors the Mosconi Cup: a race to 11 points over four days, mixing singles, doubles and five-man team matches. Bustamante told the Tuesday press conference in Makati that his team knows it comes in as the underdog and that his only instruction was to stop thinking about who the world champions are across the table and start thinking about how to beat them.

For American viewers this is the first Reyes Cup with a mainstream home. Every session streams live on ESPN+ through the ESPN App, with coverage starting at 7 a.m. Eastern (6 a.m. Central) each day from Thursday through Sunday, which matches the 7 p.m. local start in Manila. WNT TV carries it everywhere else. The full recap runs in next week's issue.

Sources: World Nineball Tour: Reyes Cup lineups confirmed, World Nineball Tour: 2026 Reyes Cup player guide, AZBilliards: ESPN to present the 2026 Roobet Reyes Cup, Absolute Pool: Reyes Cup 2026 teams revealed, Spin.ph: Django rallies Team Asia

Photo: Clement Gautron / Pro Billiard Series

Joshua Filler's third Predator Pro Billiard Series open title in four tournaments came with the kind of run that makes the Reyes Cup lineup across from him look a little more nervous. Filler dropped three sets in the entire Aramith Men's Open, two of them early, when he came back from behind against Albert Januarta and David Alcaide in the double-elimination stage to reach the last 32. From there he swept Jonas Magpantay, beat Fabio Rizzi in three sets, and then put out two former world champions in straight sets, Carlo Biado in the quarterfinals and Francisco Sanchez Ruiz in the semifinals.

Waiting in the final was China's Mi Le, who had gone undefeated through Wiktor Zielinski and Daniel Maciol and then survived a shootout against Robbie Capito in the semifinals after missing his first ball. The final turned on one shot. With the first set tied and ball in hand, Mi missed a routine eight ball, and Filler took the set. He followed it with two break-and-runs in a 4-0 second set to close the match 2-0 and collect $42,000.

A day earlier, Chou Chieh-Yu of Chinese Taipei won the Kamui WPA Women's 9-Ball World Championship for the second time, beating defending champion Seo Seoa of South Korea 4-1, 1-4, 4-1, 4-1 in the final. Chou, who won this title in 2023 and the world 10-ball title in 2022, becomes the first woman from Taiwan with three world championships and the eighth two-time women's world 9-ball champion, joining Liu Shin-Mei, Allison Fisher, Robin Bell, Liu Shasha, Kelly Fisher and Kim Ga-Young. She survived a first-round shootout against Indonesian local Chandra Kenny and then won every remaining match in straight sets, through Soledad Ayala, 2011 champion Bi Zhuqing, Silviana Lu, Huang Qingning and Chihiro Kawahara, before the final. The title paid $55,000. Seo, 23, who had put together six break-and-runs in her semifinal against Wei Tzu-Chien, was trying to go back-to-back at the same age her mentor Kim Ga-Young did it.

Spain took the third world title of the week. Sanchez Ruiz and Alcaide beat Biado and AJ Manas of the Philippines in the final of the ISAK WPA Men's Doubles 10-Ball World Championship, three sets to two, after Spain beat Poland's Wojciech Szewczyk and Daniel Maciol in one semifinal and the Filipinos beat home pair Irsal Nasution and Januarta in the other. Poland and Indonesia shared the bronze in a 32-team field that ran September 28 through October 5. Sanchez Ruiz and Biado were on opposite sides of that final and will be on opposite sides again in Makati.

Sources: Absolute Pool: Filler wins Bali Open gold, Absolute Pool: Chou becomes two time women's world 9 ball champion, AZBilliards: Spain wins the Men's Doubles 10 Ball World Championship, WPA: Chou reclaims the women's world crown as Spain wins the doubles

Photo: WPBA via AZBilliards

Fefilova-Styer goes undefeated in Bristol. Four days after playing the Women's World Championship in Bali, Margaret Fefilova-Styer won the $20,000-added WPBA Borderline Brunswick/Pechauer Invitational at Janet Atwell's Borderline Brunswick Arena in Bristol, Tennessee, beating Kristina Tkach twice on the way to the title and $9,000. In races to 8 she won her first 24 games before Atwell took her to double hill in the fourth round. She beat Tkach 8-5 for the hot seat, closing with a break-and-run, and then won the race-to-10 final 10-5, never trailing after Tkach's opening break-and-run. Briana Miller won eight straight on the loss side, her best WPBA Classic Tour finish, before Tkach stopped her 8-4 in the semifinal. The 64-player field included five who had just flown back from Bali. Tkach stays number one in the WPBA rankings as runner-up, with Fefilova-Styer moving to second.

Bausch takes Joss Stop 4 in New Hampshire. Connecticut's Alex Bausch went undefeated through a 33-player field at Winnipesaukee Bar & Billiards in Laconia for his fourth Joss NE 9-Ball Tour title and his second this calendar year. He beat Tom Cayer 9-6 in a winners' side quarterfinal, won the hot seat match double hill over Dan Sharlow, and then beat Cayer a second time in a double-hill final after Cayer had come through the loss side with a 7-3 win over Sharlow in the semifinal. The tour moves to Brick House Billiards in North Syracuse this weekend.

Szewczyk wins the Best of the East finale. A week after his second World 10-Ball title, Wojciech Szewczyk won the season finale of the Dynamic Billard Best of the East series in Kielce, Poland.

Sources: AZBilliards: Fefilova-Styer wins the WPBA Borderline Brunswick/Pechauer Invitational, AZBilliards: Bausch claims his 4th Joss NE 9 Ball Tour title, AZBilliards: Szewczyk triumphs in Kielce

Chohan vs. Hall, three days, three games. Tony Chohan and Justin Hall play an all-around money match at Classic Billiards in Lauderhill, Florida, October 22 through 24, with PoolActionTV streaming. The format is best two of three disciplines over three days: banks, race to 7, on Thursday starting at 5 p.m. local; one pocket, race to 7, on Friday; and 9-ball, race to 18, on Saturday only if the first two split. Chohan has been the stronger one-pocket player on paper and Hall the stronger bank pool player, so the 9-ball set, which neither man treats as his first game, is the one that would decide it if it gets that far.

Sources: AZBilliards Forums: Chohan vs Hall all around action match, Billiard Action Time: Chohan vs Hall listing

Before the 2026 Reyes Cup starts Thursday morning, the place to start is the opening team match of the 2025 edition, Team Asia against Team Rest of the World, on Matchroom Pool's YouTube channel. Asia won that match on the way to a 7-0 lead after two days, and Biado, Manas and Duong are all on the table.

Team Asia vs Team ROW, Match One, 2025 Reyes Cup (Matchroom Pool on YouTube)

Poison VX Break (Green), $379. If your playing cue is still doing the breaking, this is the cue that takes over the job. Poison by Predator built the VX around a Venom carbon fiber shaft, a Radial joint and a phenolic tip, so the cue drives through the rack without wearing down the shaft and tip you need for the rest of the rack. This one has a green carbon forearm with black, green and pink VX graphics. It also comes in black, and there is a VX break-jump version if you want one cue that does both jobs.

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Photo: Break Room Billiards

Roobet Reyes Cup | Makati Coliseum, Makati, Philippines | Oct. 15 to 18 | Team Asia vs. Team Rest of the World, live on ESPN+ in the US and WNT TV worldwide

Philippines Open Pool Championship | Gateway Mall, Quezon City, Manila | Oct. 20 to 24 | World Nineball Tour

Predator WPA Junior 9-Ball and 10-Ball World Championships | Grand Hyatt San Antonio River Walk | Nov. 23 to 27 | Invitational

Pro Billiard Series San Antonio | San Antonio | Nov. 23 to 28 | PBS week alongside the junior worlds

Mosconi Cup | Caribe Royale Resort, Orlando, Fla. | Nov. 27 to 30 | Team USA vs. Team Europe

Pro Billiard Series All Stars | Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, Jacksonville, Fla. | Dec. 15 to 20 | PBS season finale

World Nineball Tour schedule | Pro Billiard Series schedule | AZB full schedule

Sources: World Nineball Tour: schedule, Matchroom Pool, Pro Billiard Series: events, AZBilliards: tours and events

Every session of the Reyes Cup on ESPN+ is the real story of this week. Pool has spent two decades on pay-per-view streams and niche subscription services, and the audience it built there is loyal but small. Four days of team pool on the same app as college football, with the Mosconi Cup following in November, is the first sustained shot at a casual American viewer since the ESPN2 era. Whether Asia wins a third straight cup matters less, for the sport, than whether anyone new is watching when they do.

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