The Fosters World 8-Ball Championships has kicked off this week in the Barcelo Imperial Hotel, Blackpool. Last year’s winner Phil Harrison will be seeded number 1 in the men’s singles event and will be looking to lift the crown again. Phil is a favourite amongst the players and nobody would have been disappointed with his result last year, except Mick Hill just for a few minutes after losing the final!

It is once again a very strong field in the men’s event with former champions Gareth Potts, Jason Twist and Mick Hill in the draw. Players around the scene however think that it could well be the year of Adam Davies, a player very consistent over the last two seasons and reaching the semi-final last year.

The latter stages of the men’s event will be screened later in the year on Sky Sports along with the Women’s final and the men’s team final.

The women’s event will be between the last three champions again, Sue Thompson defending yet again, Emma Cunningham and 2008 winner Lynette Horsburgh, although Barbara Taylor has come close on a couple of occasions.

The most interesting story so far out of Blackpool is that of the Welsh men’s team (this should actually read ‘teams’). For the first time ever two teams from the same nation have been allowed to enter into the WEPF world championships. The first is the team that traditionally plays in the World Rules events but this is backed up by a team made up of Blackball players.

For those that do not follow the politics too closely Blackball and World Rules are two opposing rule sets and affiliate to different governing bodies.

On first look it seemed we may be moving a step closer to a single cohesive governing body for the small ball game, something that is certainly needed to help it progress. However, it now transpires that those players playing for the ‘Blackball’ team have now been banned from playing in International Blackball events for a 3 year period. Although it is understandable to protect your own rule set, surely by banning players it is pushing them further away and will result in them playing World Rules anyway.

Updates to the tournament will appear periodically on Cuesportnews.com but if you need a regular fix then visit http://www.wepf.org

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