16-Year Old Liu Shasha of China is the New World Champion!

The Kappa Women’s World 9-Ball Championships has come to a close, and the new titleholder, Liu Shasha, is a mere 16 years of age.  Liu who, you say?  This young Chinese player, virtually unknown to pool fans in America, rose through the 32-player single elimination round, defeating Tamara Rademakers (9-4), Si Ming Chen (9-7), then whitewash Shin-Mei Liu (9-1) to land in the semifinal against the WPBA’s #3-ranked player, “The Queen of 9-ball” Xiaoting Pan, defeating her 9-8.

Meanwhile, the lone Westerner, “Irish Invader” Karen Corr blew through her first three opponents without any getting away with more than three games in the race to 9.  China’s Xiao Fang Fu did provide a test for Corr in the semifinal, and she battled to win hill-hill and move on to the finals against Liu Shasha.

Read on for the story on the final match by WPA Press Officer Jerry Forsyth, and click here to view the online brackets from AZbilliards.com.

Liu Shasha is New Women’s World 9-Ball Champion!

-Jerry Forsyth, WPA Press Officer-

The pool world has a new World Champion and she is only 16 years old. Liu Shasha of China has defeated Karen Corr of Great Britain 9-5 to claim the title and set her career in motion in grand style.

When the last day of the Kappa 2009 Women’s World 9-Ball Championship in Shengyang, China began there were four undefeated players all seeking the same prize. The two semi-final matches could not have been closer. First, Karen Corr defeated Fu Xiofang of China 9-8 to earn her berth inn the final set. Then Liu Shasha edged her fellow Chinese citizen Pan Xiaoting by the same 9-8 margin to get her ticket punched for the honor of playing Corr in the finals.

Before the final match a playoff was held between Pan Xiaoting and Xiaofang to determine our third place finisher. Pan controlled this match throughout and took that spot with a very convincing 9-1 victory. Then a crowd of over 1,000 very excited fans took their seats to watch the final battle.

It appeared that Corr would walk away with the title. She was the master of the table early on and rarely gave Shasha a glimpse of daylight. At one point she led our race to nine games by the score of 5-1. Shasha was obviously nervous and off her game. But then, assuming that she had to be aggressive to have a chance at victory, she put her nerves down and began her march.

She won the next game to make the score 5-2, then broke and ran five racks in a row to lead 7-5. The penultimate rack had a bit of back and forth but Shasha won that as well and then on the final break she made four balls on the snap and easily made the clearance to take her 6th break and run of the match and earn the gold!

Congratulations to our youthful champion and to all of the organizers who worked so hard to make this event a grand success. Every detail was handled with care and the event ran as smoothly as any ever witnessed.