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2007 WPA Men's World Nine-ball Championship

The 2007 WPA Men's World Nine-ball Championship (billed in the host country as 2007 Philippines World Pool Championship) was the 18th annual international nine-ball pool tournament for men sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). It was held at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines from 3–11 November 2007. It was the second consecutive time the tournament has been held in the Philippines.

The tournament is sponsored by Matchroom Sport, which has sponsored the event since 1999. 128 participants from 46 WPA member countries competed for US$400,000 in total prize money, including defending champion Ronato Alcano of the Philippines. The overall winner received a purse of $100,000, the highest-ever payout for the tournament.

Format

The Format of qualifying used on 2006 was used for 2007. Several last-minute qualifying tournaments were held in the Metro Manila area a few weeks before the tournament starts.

All matches are in winner's : the winner of the previous rack will break on the next rack, it was reverted from alternate break used in 2006.

Also, a double-elimination tournament will be used for the group stages; instead of 32 groups of 4, there will be 16 groups of eight, with the top four advancing. Each player will be seeded 1-8 in their groups, with a routine double-elimination tournament following the first round; however the player that wins twice will advance to the quarterfinals and will not take part in other group matches, in contrast if a player loses two games, he is eliminated. The top four players in each group therefore would had won twice. After the group stages, the routine 64-man single elimination tournament follows.

In the initial group stages the format consists of to 9 racks. The last 64 play races to 10 racks. This is followed by the round of 16 (quarterfinals and semifinals) where the races are to 11 racks. The race in the finals jumps to 17 racks.

Notable occurrences

On day 1, a group match (race to 9) between Charlie Williams and Ricky Yang took over 2 and half hours to complete, with both players accused of playing too slowly. Calls were made for moves to outlaw overly-slow play in future years.

On day 3, Jeremy Jones of the U.S. and Finland's Mika Immonen almost came to blows after Immonen eliminated Jones from contention, 9-6 at the group stages.

There was high drama on day 4, Tuesday afternoon at the Big Dome when fire broke out in the lighting rig over Table 5 on the upper tier. Each of the outside tables has a light box with fluorescent tubes that light the table and a short circuit sent sparks flying and before long the box was ablaze. Matchroom Sport's John McDonald alerted venue staff and only his quick thinking saved the table as he and cameraman Lawrence 'Lol' Lustig covered it to stop debris and foam raining down onto the felt. Before long temporary lights were installed and play was able to commence at the designated time.

On the quarterfinals, Francisco Bustamante, leading Daryl Peach 10-9 in a race to 11 match, failed to play position on the 3-ball and snookered himself behind the 9-ball. A kick shot struck both the 3 and 9 balls, fluking the 9 into a corner pocket. With the player and crowd celebrating the win, a lengthy inquiry began, in which the referee and tournament officials studied frame-by-frame replays of the shot, before concluding that the 9 had been struck first, and the shot was therefore a foul. After the lengthy break in play, in which Bustamante insisted the shot had been legal, Peach ran the rest of the match to win.

Players

By nation

The WPA considered the home nations of England and Scotland as separate entities for the tournament and the codes of "ENG" and "SCO" was subsequently shown in the TV broadcast instead of "GBR.

	Champion
	Runner-up
	Semifinals
	Quarterfinals
	Last 16
	Last 32
	Last 64
	Group stages

15 players: Philippines
14 players: Chinese Taipei (Taiwan)
11 players: United States
7 players: Germany
6 players: Canada and England
5 players: Japan
4 players: Australia
3 players: China, Holland (Netherlands), Indonesia, Italy, Poland, Scotland, Serbia and Singapore.
2 players: Chile, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Spain and Vietnam.
1 player: Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Eritrea, Finland, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Qatar, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey and UAE

Seeded

Seed	Name	Previous titles	2007 finish
1	Ronato Alcano	1 (2006)	Last 64
2	Ralf Souquet	1 (1996)	Last 32
3	Wu Chia-ching	1 (2005)	Last 32
4	Yang Ching-shun	none	Last 64
5	Thorsten Hohmann	1 (2003)	Group stage
6	Efren Reyes	1 (1999)	Last 64
7	Chang Jung-lin	none	Last 32
8	Alex Pagulayan	1 (2004)	Last 16
9	Francisco Bustamante	none	Quarterfinals
10	Thomas Engert	none	Last 64
11	Konstantin Stepanov	none	Last 16
12	Mika Immonen	1 (2001)	Quarterfinals
13	Shane Van Boening	none	Last 32
14	Li He-wen	none	Group stage
15	Johnny Archer	2 (1992, 1997)	Group stage
16	Niels Feijen	none	Last 16

Seed	Name	Previous titles	2007 finish
17	Daryl Peach	none	Champion
18	Chao Fong-pang	2 (1993, 2000)	Last 32
19	Fabio Petroni	none	Last 64
20	Dennis Orcollo	none	Last 64
21	Lee Van Corteza	none	Last 64
22	Rodney Morris	none	Group stage
23	Imran Majid	none	Last 64
24	Corey Deuel	none	Last 16
25	David Alcaide	none	Last 64
26	Christian Reimering	none	Withdrew
27	Tony Drago	none	Last 32
28	Fu Che-wei	none	Last 64
29	Jonni Fulcher	none	Group stage
30	Luong Chi Dung	none	Last 32
31	Ronnie Wiseman	none	Group stage
32	Ricky Yang	none	Group stage