The 2023 Predator WPA World 8-Ball Men’s Championship will pay its champion $75,000, the highest winner’s prize in tournament pool.
That marks an increase from the $60,000 earned by defending champion Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz when he took the title home from Puerto Rico last year.
The 2023 Predator WPA World 8-Ball Men’s Championship will take place this October 17-22 at Sportpark Klagenfurt in Austria, which will also be hosting the Predator WPA World 10-Ball Women’s Championship (October 18-22) and the Predator WPA World 10-Ball Junior Championships (October 19-22).
The 96-player invited field for the Predator WPA World 8-Ball Men’s Championship will be competing for a total prize fund of $250,000. A race-to-8 double elimination bracket will reduce the field to 32 players who will then face single elimination to determine the champion.
The Predator Pro Billiard Series, working alongside Richwert promotions, returns to the picturesque city of Klagenfurt, home of the Jasmin Ouschan Billiard Academy, for the third time but this year marks the first staging of the Predator WPA World 8-Ball Men’s Championship in the country.
Sanchez-Ruiz will be one of the favorites as he aims to defend his title but 2022 semi-finalist Mario He will be in his home country, while Albin Ouschan will have home-town support at Sportpark Klagenfurt, the base of his sister’s Jasmin Ouschan Billiard Academy.
This will be the ninth staging of the men’s World 8-Ball Championship. It had previously been played in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates before being revived from a ten-year hiatus in Puerto Rico last year.
Sanchez-Ruiz claimed his first World Championship title in San Juan, fending off an elite field and beating players including Fedor Gorst, Robbie Capito and Mario He before defeating Poland’s Wiktor Zielinski 10-6 in the final.
Cyrille Fournier, Chief Operating Officer of Predator Group, said: “It is important to us that we continue to grow and improve our events, and recognize champions for their achievements. Having both the World 8-Ball Men’s Championship and World 10-Ball Women’s Championship pay their winner a record amount reflects our commitment to investing and growing the sport and these WPA World Championship events. “We are grateful to our partners at Richwert Promotions, the city of Klagenfurt and region of Carinthia for their excellent support of the sport and these events. It is a huge task to stage five World Championships in the same place in one week but our previous experience working with our partners in Austria gives us the confidence that we will see another incredible week of billiards in Klagenfurt.”
Also taking place in Klagenfurt will be the Predator WPA World 10-Ball Women’s Championship (18-22 October) and the Predator WPA World 10-Ball Junior Championships (19-22 October), which has divisions for Girls, Boys Under-19s and Boys Under-17s.
The 48-player World 10-Ball Women’s Championship has also seen an increase to the winner’s prize. The 2023 champion will take home $45,000, an increase from the €30,000 prize paid in 2022.
All five World Championship events will be broadcast in full across Predator Pro Billiard Series broadcast platforms. The World Billiard TV YouTube channel and Billiard TV will host table 1 matches with multi-camera coverage and English commentary free to watch throughout the events. Kozoom.com will be the destination to watch every single match live.
