Zheng Yubo 21-15 Zhao Ruliang aspires to the World Championships as the first defending man in history
On March 26, 2019, the CBSA “Yaqi Group” Cup Chinese Billiards World Championship entered the final day of the final battle. Zheng Yubo, the last World Championship champion, and Zhao Ruliang, who is currently number one in CBSA Chinese billiards, fought 36 rounds in the final. In the end, Zheng Yubo defeated Zhao Ruliang 21-15 and won the championship at the same time, becoming the first player to successfully defend the title in the history of the event. .
The Chinese Billiards World Championship is the highest level of Chinese billiards tournament and has been successfully held for 5 sessions so far. The first men’s championship at the World Championships was won by Darren Appleton. Since then, Shi Hanqing, Yang Fan, and Zheng Yubo have won the world championships.
As the champion of the last World Championships, Zheng Yubo directly entered the international men’s team at the double-loss stage of the main match. In the double-loss match, the world champion made great strides all the way and successfully won the right to qualify for the winning team with a two-game winning streak. After entering the single defeat, Zheng Yubo, who was stationed in the lower half, eliminated the former national player Chu Bingjie, the first Chinese player Shi Hanqing to win the World Championships, Jilin player Wang Yun and Wang Peng from Anshan, Liaoning, standing in the finals for two consecutive years.
Zhao Ruliang studied under Yang Fan, the former World Championship champion. In the 7 Chinese billiards rankings held last year, Zhao Ruliang won a championship in Sanya, and with this result he reached the top of the CBSA Chinese billiards ranking. This is Zhao Ruliang’s fourth consecutive World Championships. He fell in the qualifying rounds for the first three times. In this site, Zhao Ruliang also experienced two consecutive victories during the double-loss match and was shortlisted as a seed player in the single-loss knockout. Entering the single-loss match, Zhao Ruliang eliminated Chinese Taipei players Ke Bingyi, Wang Pan, Zhang Ronglin and world snooker professional Joe Perry and won tickets for the finals.
In the finals, 41 rounds of 21 wins were used, and the first and second halves were played at 13:00 and 19:00 respectively. At the beginning of the game, Zheng Yubo, who was striving to defend his title, established the lead through three consecutive victories. Then, the score basically followed the rhythm of Zheng Yubo winning 2-3 rounds and Zhao Ruliang pulling one round. At the end of the first half, Zheng Yubo took 5 shots to clear the score tentatively at 12-6.
In the second half, Zhao Ruliang struggled to catch up with the score. After 33 innings, the score came to 15-18. Zhao Ruliang narrowed the gap between the two to 3 innings. The world champion who felt the pressure refused to be reversed. Then, Zheng Yubo used three consecutive victories to draw a successful end to his road to defending the title.
In the men’s third and fourth place finals starting at 10 am, Wang Peng defeated Joe Perry 13-12 and won the title of third place in the event.
