World Pool Championship in Saudi Arabia

The World Pool Championship (Nine-Ball) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the world's championships in billiards. The Kingdom is set to host two rounds of the World Pool Championship and the Masters Snooker Championship for ten years, starting in 2024. The championship will witness the participation of an elite group of world players, as the Ministry of Sport strives to achieve the sporting goals under Saudi Vision 2030.

The Kingdom hosted the World Pool Championship (Nine-Ball), which kicked off on June 3, 2024. It was organized by the Saudi Billiard and Snooker Federation and lasted for six days in the Sports Green Halls within Prince Abdullah al-Faisal Sports City in Jeddah, with a record price of USD600,000. This edition featured 128 players representing forty-five countries worldwide, including the top one hundred players from the World Pool Masters Tournament, as well as the twenty-eight finalists from the qualification round and invited participants, where the participating stars will compete over 233 games across sixteen tables. Among the participants in this championship are the World Champion and five-time U.S. Open Nine-ball Championship winner, Francisco Sánchez Ruíz, 2022 World Champion Shane Van Boening, and 2018 World Champion Joshua Filler. In addition to thirteen players from the Kingdom, fourteen players participated from the United States of America, thirteen players from the Philippines, eight players from China and Taiwan, six players from Germany, as well as five players from Britain, four from Kuwait and Australia, and three from Spain, Greece, and Poland. It also witnessed the participation of players from Switzerland, Japan, Vietnam, Albania, Hong Kong, and Norway. Moreover, one player participated from the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman, Syria, Qatar, Bahrain, Lithuania, Estonia, Venezuela, Denmark, Austria, and Eritrea, as well as Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, and New Zealand. The Kingdom was represented in the Pool World Championship by an elite group of players with numerous accomplishments, including the Arab Senior Champion Ahmad Al Jabbar, the Arab senior doubles champions Khalid al-Otaibi and Saad ad-Daris, along with the Arab Junior Champion, Nawwaf al-Shamardal, and Khalid al-Ghamidi, the Gulf Junior Champion.

American player Fedor Gorst became the first international player to ascend the winners' podium in the World Pool Champion on the Saudi lands. He was crowned the title of the thirty-third edition of the championship after defeating the Albanian player Eklent Kaçi in the final match with a score of (15-14) in a marathon match, witnessed by a large crowd and media presence. Additionally, the Albanian Eklent Kaçi was awarded second place in the World Pool 'Nine-Ball' Championship, and the German player Felix Vogel won the inaugural Saudi Arabian Junior Championship.