Biado dethrones Gorst to win World Pool 9-Ball crown
Manila Times
27 July 2025
MANILA, Philippines — For a moment there, Filipino cue artist Carlo Biado looked like he was going to find himself on the short end of Russian-American champ Fedor Gorst's fightback.
Trailing early at 0-2 in the race to 15 final of the World Pool Championship (WPC) 9-Ball at the Green Halls in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia early Sunday in Manila, Biado zoomed to a 9-2 lead and stayed in control at 13-9.
Then he scratched the ball off his break in the 23rd rack and it resulted in back-to-back runouts for Gorst, 13-11.
Biado, 41, committed another blunder in the 25th rack, incurring a bad shot after he inadvertently hit the 8-ball first instead of 2 from a tough angle.
Gorst, 25, pounced on the opportunity and proceeded for another pair of runouts to tie at 13, turning what once looked like a lopsided game into an thrilling match down the stretch.
The momentum shifted in the 27th rack when Gorst got himself a dry break, as Biado turned to his clutch-shot making for a runout to get on the hill and another one for the win, 15-13, and the distinction as the first Filipino player to become a 2-time WPC titlist.
The other Filipino champs were Efren 'Bata' Reyes in 1999, Ronnie Alcano in 2006, and Francisco 'Django' Bustamante in 2010.
"I'm happy because I'm a 2-time world champion now," Biado, who first won the event in 2017, said in an interview with Matchroom Pool. "I could bring this trophy back to the Philippines. I'm so happy a lot of Filipinos were watching and rooting for me (here in the venue)."
Biado added:
"This final is an unforgettable game because Fedor is one of the best players in the world and he's a monster in the table. I'm worried even when I'm leading at 9-2 because if he gets a break, he has a monster break, and that happened today but I'm still focused on the game even when he came back."
Relieved and ecstatic after pocketing the 9-ball in the 28th rack, Biado let out a yell, punched the air multiple times, and climbed to the table top for more celebratory shouting.
Who wouldn't when you make history as the first Filipino player to become a 2-time world champ, when you make $250,000 prize money or more than P14.2 million from it, and when you join the elite list of Earl Strickland, Johnny Archer, Chao Fong-Pang, Thorsten Hohmann and Gorst as multi-time World Pool champions.
Biado defeated compatriot Jefferey Ignacio, Polish Wiktor Zielinski, English Chris Melling, Taiwanese Ko Ping Chung, and another Pinoy player Bernie Regalario in the semifinal before dethroning Gorst in the final.
Gorst made $100,000 or more than P5.7 million as a finalist while Regalario bagged $50,000 or more than P2.8 million like Albanian Kledio Kaci, who lost to Gorst in the other semis bracket Saturday evening.