CUE SPORTS – BAHRAIN’S Hussain Maroom will be making his debut on billiards’ biggest stage tomorrow when he faces a mammoth challenge against world number 11 Wiktor Zielinski of Poland.
Seventeen-year-old Maroom will be taking on his 23-year-old rival in the first stage of the 2024 World Pool Championship – the crown jewel of the World Nineball Tour – which gets underway today in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The contest is scheduled for 1pm tomorrow, Bahrain time, and will be a race-to-nine battle.
Zielinski is one of the top names in nine-ball billiards today. In 2017, at the age of 16, he became the youngest-ever player to win a Euro Tour event after taking the Treviso Open in Italy.
Maroom is the only Bahraini cueist in the billiards showcase, which features 128 of the best players from around the world. They include current world number one and defending world champion Francisco Sanchez Ruiz of Spain, along with Fedor Gorst and Shane Van Boening of the US, and Albin Ouschan of Austria – all of whom are also ex-world champs.
Maroom is competing in the worlds as a wildcard entry, handpicked by the Bahrain Billiards, Snooker and Darts Federation.
There are 14 other wildcards in Jeddah, including Pia Filler of Germany, Sam Henderson of the US, Alvin Anggito of Indonesia, Petri Makkonen of Finland, Daniel Maciol and Wojciech Szewczyk of Poland, DJ McGinley of Canada, James Georgiadis of Australia, Mubarak Al Wahaibi of Oman, Ali Al Obaidli of Qatar, Bader Al Awadhi of Kuwait, Talal Al Balooshi of the UAE, Ameer Ali of Iraq, and Hamzaa Ali of Eritrea.
The worlds are being played in double-elimination format for the record-breaking prize fund of $1million, with $250,000 going to this year’s world champion.
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