Wiktor "The Wiz" Zielinski won the 2026 Diamond Open Nineball Players Championship at the Super Billiards Expo in Oaks, Pennsylvania (April 9-12), going undefeated through a field of 176 entrants to take the $16,000 top prize. It's the largest WNT ranking field of the year so far and the richest American payout of the spring at $100,000 total.

The numbers make it look easy. In eight races to 10, Zielinski's opponents averaged 4.1 racks against him. Seven of the eight came to the table with FargoRates lower than his (827). The exception was Singapore's Aloysius Yapp (839, reigning US Open champion), who managed only four. Niels Feijen came in as defending champion and never reached the final weekend. The semifinalists losers Michael Feliciano and Dominik Jastrzab took $7,000 apiece. Naoyuki Oi, Sanjin Pehlivanovic, John Morra, Fedor Gorst, Tyler Styer, Thorsten Hohmann, and Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz were all in the last 16.

In the final, Greece's Hubert Lopotko (Fargo 780) took Zielinski to 4-4 through the first eight racks. Then Zielinski won six straight to closed it 10-4. Worth noting: Lopotko had never played in the United States before this event. He'd never played at SBE. He lost his opening-round Stage 1 match 10-6 to Mark Malayan, worked all the way back through the one-loss side and took down Naoyuki Oi along the way to reach the final.

Zielinski told AZBilliards afterward: "It wasn't easy." Per the result sheet, it kind of was.

🔗 Full Story

Brass Tap & Billiards in Raleigh ran both halves of the Beasley Open this past week (April 14-19). Two different disciplines, two different champions, both worth keeping an eye on.

One Pocket first. Roberto "Superman" Gomez, reigning International Open One Pocket and 2024 Buffalo's Pro One Pocket champion, took the Making It In America One Pocket Tour stop over Billy Thorpe, 8-3 in the extended-race final. The field was stacked: Bustamante, Josh Roberts, Mike DeLawder, Arseni Sevastyanov, Felix Vogel. Thorpe actually sent Gomez to the one-loss side earlier in the bracket (3-1) and took the hot seat over Adam Smith (3-1). Gomez came back through and closed the final in the final rack.

Now the nineball. Jesus Atencio won the Beasley Open WNT ranking event that followed, a $41,300 nineball field. He did it by beating Lukas Fracasso-Verner 11-4 in the final.

The 9-ball field brought a strong international mix to Raleigh, including Francisco Bustamante, John Morra, Mickey Krause, Oliver Ruuger, and plenty of the regional names you'd expect at a Brass Tap event.

Atencio has been building to this. He won the River City Open undefeated in November 2025, his first recorded title in three years and his best earnings year on the books. He beat Fedor Gorst 9-7 at the Florida Open last August. He was runner-up to John Morra at Turning Stone in January (Morra took that one 13-6 in the final). This is Atencio's second WNT ranking event title in six months. Fracasso-Verner has had his own strong year, winning the USA National Men's 10-Ball Championship last July and pacing the field through the early Beasley brackets before running into Atencio on Sunday.

Next WNT ranking event: Bob Stocks Memorial, April 24-26 in Virginia, $37,400 prize fund.

🔗 Beasley Open

The Women's Professional Billiard Association brought its US Open Pool Championship back this past weekend (April 16-19) at the Island Resort & Casino in Harris, Michigan. The first WPBA US Open in roughly a decade. Sixty-four players, $60,000 added, $17,000 to the winner. It's the WPBA's 50th Anniversary Tour Stop #4, and the biggest women's event on the spring calendar.

Chou Chieh-Yu (Taipei) won it undefeated. The two-time world champion (2022 World 10-Ball, 2023 World 9-Ball) took $17,000 and the title, her second WPBA win in the last three events. Her road through the bracket ran Han Yu, Ashley Rice, Tzu-Chien Wei, Margarita Fefilova Styer, Meng-Hsia Hung, and Silviana Lu before the final.

The field had depth. Reigning WPBA #1 Kristina Tkach was the #1 seed. Germany's Pia Filler was seeded #2, with Margarita Fefilova-Styer at #3, and Kelly Fisher, Bean Hung, and Jasmin Ouschan all in the draw.

The final, against 16-year-old Savannah "Roadrunner" Easton of Las Vegas, turned on a single rack. It was close through game seven. Easton missed a 3-ball. Chou took the rack to pull ahead, and then ran off eight games in a row to close the match.

That's the story of the final. The bigger story is everything Easton did to get there.

Easton entered as the #5 WPBA competitor over the last ten events. She lost an 8-7 hill-hill match to Canada's Brittany Bryant early in the event, which dropped her to the one-loss side. She worked back through Sakura Muramatsu, Shui Ching Chiang, Ashley Rice, Teruko Macklin, Pia Filler, Chia Hua Chen, Bryant (avenged), Tzu-Chien Wei, and Silviana Lu to reach the final.

Before the last day, Easton told TV6 in Marquette: "I'm the only American left actually in the U.S. Open, so hopefully I can take it home for my country." She didn't. She's 16. She took $12,000 for second place, her best WPBA finish by a distance.

Final eight: Chou ($17,000), Easton ($12,000), Silviana Lu ($7,500), Tzu-Chien Wei ($5,500), Brittany Bryant and Meng-Hsia Hung ($4,200 each), Chia Hua Chen and Kelly Fisher ($3,300 each).

She's also not the only teenager hitting career numbers on the women's side. Sofia "The Pink Dagger" Mast (17) finished fourth at the WPBA Raxx Mezz Olhausen Invitational in March, her own best-ever WPBA finish. Two teenagers hitting career highs six weeks apart is how a pipeline starts looking like a pipeline.

Next WPBA stop: June 4-7, Soaring Eagle Casino, Mount Pleasant, Michigan.

🔗 WPBA US Open Recap. 📺 Watch the final match.

🏆 Allison Fisher gets the Long Leaf Pine. The legendary WPBA Hall of Famer, 80+ titles and 30 years a Charlotte resident, was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine this month. It's North Carolina's highest civilian honor. Past recipients include Michael Jordan and Maya Angelou. Fisher now stands alongside them.

🔗 Story

🎱 Pechauer drops the Pink Dagger signature line. J. Pechauer Custom Cues has released the Sofia Mast Champion Collection. Pink accents, sharp inlays, the whole Pink Dagger look. Green Bay, Wisconsin build. Mast joins David Alcaide and April Larson as the third player with a signature Pechauer Champion Collection line. She's 17.

🔗 Check them out!

📅 Bob Stocks Memorial this weekend. April 24-26 in Virginia, $37,400 prize fund, WNT ranking event. The next checkpoint for everyone chasing points through spring.

🔗 Details.

"How badly did I miss that 9 ball? 🥴"

Fedor Gorst | April 17, 2026 | 46K views

World No.1 Fedor Gorst posted a short of himself badly missing a 9-ball this week. It's one of those misses where everybody at the table knows what's supposed to happen and then the ball does not do it. The self-deprecating caption is why the video works. Forty-six thousand views in a few days.

Tell us what you think in the comments!

📍 Bob Stocks Memorial — April 24-26 | Virginia, USA | WNT Ranking | $37,400

📍 Costa Rica Open — April 29–May 3 | San Jose | WNT Ranking | $35,000

📍 UK Open Pool Championship — May 26-31 | Brentwood, Essex | Matchroom Major | $225,000

Three ranking events in eleven days. Zielinski took the biggest US payout. Atencio and Gomez split Beasley. Chou closed out the WPBA US Open in its first staging in a decade. Follow along for the Bob Stocks recap next weekend and Costa Rica the week after.

On The Hill is the weekly newsletter from Break Room Billiards. If you liked this issue, forward it to someone who plays. Subscribe at onthehill.news.

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