Eight days at the Hyatt Regency at the Arch, four separate events, and a combined prize fund north of $540,000, the Predator Pro Billiard Series doesn't do anything small when it sets up in the United States. It’s first visit to St. Louis was no exception. The main event is the 2026 Yalin WPA Men's 8-Ball World Championship, which drew 96 players from across the world, with $90,000 going to the champion out of a $300,000 total fund, and it marked the first time the tournament has been held on American soil. Pro Billiard TV streamed everything free on its 4 YouTube live streams throughout the week, including commentary on the main two tables.
We’ll break down each event and give you the need to know.
🏆 Aloysius Yapp Wins the 2026 WPA Men's 8-Ball World Championship
Aloysius Yapp of Singapore claimed the 2026 Yalin WPA Men's 8-Ball World Championship on Wednesday, defeating Francisco Sanchez Ruiz 10-4 in the final at the Hyatt Regency at the Arch in St. Louis. The title and $90,000 is Yapp’s, and it marks the first time Singapore has produced a WPA world champion in 8-ball.
Yapp came into the week seeded as the US Open champion and one of the tour's form players, but the path through the knockout stage was not without resistance. In the quarterfinals he beat Poland's Daniel Maciol 10-6, then turned to face Wiktor Zielinski in the semifinals, the neutral competitor who had ended Carlo Biado's run in the same round. Yapp dispatched him 10-4 and showed no signs of tightening up in the final, where Sanchez Ruiz, the 2022 champion in this same tournament, could manage only four racks against him.
The bracket produced some notable results before the final stage. Biado, who had gone viral during the week for running eight consecutive break-and-runs in a set, fell to Zielinski 8-10 in the quarterfinals, ending a run that had made him the most-watched player of the event. Defending champion Albin Ouschan beat Jayson Shaw 10-9 in the quarters before losing to Sanchez Ruiz in the semis. Shaw, Sanchez Ruiz, Ouschan, Yapp, Zielinski and Maciol made up the final eight in what was the strongest knockout stage the revived tournament has produced since its 2022 return.
🏦 Fedor Gorst Wins the Bank Pool Master Showdown
The Bank Pool Master Showdown ran April 1-2 as the opening card of the week, a 16-player invitational with $50,000 prize pool. Hometown favorite Justin Bergman lost to Gorst in the semi-final, as Gorst worked through a draw that included a murderers-row of world class bank pool players and beat Jayson Shaw in the final to take the title. He stayed in the building and competed in two other events the rest of the week. The world No. 1 left St. Louis with a round of 16 exit from the 8ball world championship event, and a semi-final exit from the Mixed Doubles event with Taiwan’s Meng-Hsia Hung. He’ll be at SBE next week along with most of the pool world.
🎱 Carlo Biado’s Perfect Set Was Not Enough
Carlo Biado came to St. Louis carrying a resume that made the field take notice. Two world 9-ball titles in 2017 and 2025, the 10-ball championship in 2024, and a US Open. The 8-ball world title was the one thing missing from that list, and that framing followed him through every match of the week.
He worked through the double-elimination phase cleanly, dispatched Lithuania's Pijus Labutis 8-3, and arrived at the knockout stage as the last Filipino standing. He took out Maco Teutscher 10-7 in the round of 16. However, just before that in a losers qualification match vs Vitaliy Patsura, Biado had won the opening lag in a set and then run out eight consecutive racks on break-and-runs, never letting his opponent pick up the cue ball from start to finish. A perfect set.
Wiktor Zielinski then beat him 10-8 in the quarterfinals and ended Biado’s run. Zielinski came to St. Louis with plenty of motivation of his own. In the 2022 edition of this same tournament in Klagenfurt, he reached the final before losing to Francisco Sanchez Ruiz. Unfortunately, Zielinski will continue to hunt for his first world championship as he bowed out in the semis vs Yapp.
📋 BCA Launches USA Cue Sports
On April 3, the Billiard Congress of America announced the launch of USA Cue Sports, a unified federation for professional cue sport athletes across the U.S. and North America. The organization is aligned with global governing bodies and aims to eventually gain recognition from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee—something cue sports have never achieved in the U.S.
The structure includes representation from men’s and women’s pros, snooker, carom, para-athletes, youth, amateurs, and pool room owners. Led by BCA Chairman Jacklyn Ady and President Ed Liddawi, the initiative appears more structured than past attempts, though whether it delivers long-term impact remains to be seen.
🔗 BCA News
🏆 Jasmin Ouschan Wins the 2026 Seybert's Women's Open
Jasmin Ouschan of Austria won the 2026 Seybert's Women's Open on Wednesday, beating China's Fu Xiaofang 2-1 in the final. The event ran alongside the Men's 8-Ball World Championship, with 64 players competing in 10-ball format for a $90,000 prize fund.
Ouschan worked through the bracket with consistent results in the knockout rounds, beating Korea's Seo Seo 2-1 in the quarterfinals and Canada's Brittany Bryant 2-1 in the semifinals. Fu Xiaofang, competing for China, reached the final with a 2-0 shutout of Bulgaria's Kristina Zlateva in her semifinal after earlier eliminating Kelly Fisher 2-0 in the quarters. The final went three sets before Ouschan claimed it.
Notable exits in the round of sixteen included Chezka Centeno, who lost to Japan's Chihiro Kawahara 1-2, and Rubilen Amit, who fell to Ouschan 1-2 in that same round. Pia Filler of Germany reached the quarterfinals before Zlateva eliminated her 2-1. Defending WNT women's standout Chou Chieh-Yu also went out in the last sixteen, losing to Zlateva 1-2.
🏆 Seo and Zielinski Win the 2026 Poison Mixed Doubles Open
Korea's Seo Seo and Poland's Wiktor Zielinski claimed the 2026 Poison Mixed Doubles Open on Tuesday, defeating China's Fu Xiaofang and St. Louis native Justin Bergman 2-0 in the final . The event ran April 3-7 alongside the other PBS St. Louis events, with $100,000 in the prize fund and $40,000 going to the champions.
Zielinski was the busiest player of the entire St. Louis week. He had already knocked Carlo Biado out of the Men's 8-Ball World Championship quarterfinals 10-8 before falling to eventual champion Aloysius Yapp 10-4 in the semis, then turned around and won the mixed doubles on top of it. Seo had lost to Jasmin Ouschan in the Women's Open quarterfinals, so both players came into the doubles final having already tasted defeat in the building that week.
Their path to the title included a 2-1 quarterfinal win over Japan's Hiraguchi and Poland's Wojciech Szewczyk, then a 2-1 semifinal over Taiwan's Meng-Hsia Hung and Fedor Gorst, who had opened the week by winning the Bank Pool Master Showdown. Fu and Bergman reached the final from the other side by beating Chezka Centeno and Jayson Shaw 2-1 in the semis, after Centeno and Shaw had knocked out the Ouschan pairing 2-0 in the quarters.
Zielinski finishes the St. Louis week with a doubles title and a semifinal run in the main event. Not the week he came for, but not a bad one either.
🗓️ Up Next: Diamond Open Nineball at Super Billiards Expo
The tour moves to the greater Philadelphia area starting today, Thursday for the 32nd annual Super Billiards Expo, where the Diamond Open Nineball Professional Players Championship runs as a WNT Bronze ranking event. The field sold out at 176 players and the prize fund sits at $100,000, with the winner guaranteed $16,000 and finals scheduled for Sunday afternoon. The Expo runs alongside the pro event all four days at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, with manufacturers, custom cue makers, and retailers on the floor while the bracket plays out in the same building. Billiard Sports Network will be live streaming the main table for free on their YT channel.
Check out our breakdown of the madness that is Expo in last weeks issue!
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