Ko Pin-yi on Saturday won the World Pool Masters in England to become the first Taiwanese to win the invitational tournament title.
The 33-year-old Ko, who was the only Taiwanese at the 16-player tournament, beat Eklent Kaci of Albania 13-5 in the final at the Brentwood Centre in Essex to win the US$40,000 prize.
He celebrated by jumping onto the table before he was awarded the trophy.
Photo taken from Matchroom Pool’s Facebook page
Ko said the win was a dream come true for him and his younger brothers, Ko Ping-chung and Ko Ping-han, who are also professional pool players.
“Last year, the three of us were chatting about how we would jump onto the pool table the next time we won an international championship. However, Ko Ping-chung didn’t do it when he won the championship in the Maldives,” Ko Pin-yi wrote on Facebook yesterday, referring to his brother’s victory at the Maldives Open 10-Ball Championship last month.
“That’s okay, I’ll do it this time,” Ko Pin-yi said.
He previously reached the semi-finals at the tournament.
Ko Pin-yi said he is “truly thrilled” to win Taiwan’s first title at the World Pool Masters, and is “on track to compete in the Grand Slam of all major competitions,” toward which the Ko brothers would “keep working hard and get[ting] better.”
The World Pool Masters, first held in 1993, is “pool’s most historic invitational tournament,” the Web site Matchroom Pool says.
Hsia Hui-kai, who finished runner-up at the tournament in 2003, is the only Taiwanese player to have reached the final before Ko.
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