1. Carlo Biado added another milestone in his career by bagging the 2024 World 10 Ball crown. He became one of the few players in modern pool history to win world championship in two disciplines, 9-Ball and 10-Ball. Along with his US 9-Ball Open crown, will this make the Black Tiger a serious contender for next year’s BCA Hall of Fame?

2. Gorst made history by winning WNT’s triple crown(aka Gorst Triple) in the same year. He took the World Pool Masters in April, followed it with his 2nd World Championship in June and capped the year by snagging his first US Open title from none other than recent hall of famer SVB. Will Gorst continue his monster run in 2025?

3. As previously mentioned, SVB was officially inducted to the BCA Hall of Fame. A career full of achievements which yet has to slow down. After winning the World 8-Ball crown in 2023, he almost became the first person to win the US Open title 6x in 2024(blame Gorst for raining on the parade).

4. The inaugural Reyes Cup finally happened and it was a successful(for the most part) event held in Manila. After several years of fan talk, Matchroom Multi Sport CEO Emily Frazer finally made it happen. As most fans predicted, Europe was handed a beatdown by Asia. Team Asia showed dominance the entire 4 days of the event. Surprisingly, Aloysius Yapp(the player that was supposedly the weakest before the event started) became MVP as he showed why he qualified for this in the first place.

5. The revelation that was Johann Chua, just an awe-inspiring run in the 2nd half of the season. If not for Gorst, Bad Koi would have been player of the year. As we fondly call him Mr. Consistent, his name almost always appeared in the last 8 of every competition he joined. After finishing 3rd in the World 9-Ball Championship, he went on a mission. Bagged a title in the Philippines, runner up in the European Open, last 16 in the US Open, his first WNT ranking title in a stacked field of the 1st Zen&Yuan8 Open and capping the WNT season with a title in the 2nd Hanoi Open. He also got an automatic spot in the Reyes Cup. And boy he was not finished, as he bagged the first ever Marboys Open title in December.

6. Filler was nowhere to be found in both the Reyes Cup and Mosconi Cup. After Filler voiced his support to Asian players(because of the impending bans set by the WPA on players joining the Hanoi Open) by issuing a statement that he will not be attending any WPA event, he made a 180 degree turn and attended the World 8-Ball Championship(which he won; a childhood dream by the way) in New Zealand. And in another surprising move, went to the China Open(he won this too) and ditched the WNT’s Hanoi Open. All this culminated to Matchroom having to “withdraw Joshua Filler from the Mosconi Cup” and prior that released a statement saying “Joshua Filler has been withdrawn from the Reyes Cup”.

7. The Matchroom vs. WPA saga continues. It looks like Matchroom is prepared to take “any action necessary”, maybe including going to court.

Billiards Digest reported: “In a direct and pointed email prepared by Matchroom Legal Counsel & Director Jai Singh and distributed on Dec. 12 to more than 70 World Nineball Tour players (both current and currently playing in only WPA events), promoters and federations, Matchroom accused the WPA of abusing its authority with player bans enforced following the Hanoi Open and demanded that WPA lift its “arbitrary” player bans by Dec. 19. If the WPA fails to lift the bans by that date, the email said, Matchroom “reserves the right to take any action necessary to protect our rights and the rights of the players.”

8. The Jaybee Sucal-AJ Manas era of Philippine pool. Much to the chagrin of some Filipino die-hard pool enthusiast, Jaybee Sucal has continually increased his popularity and in effect the sport’s resurgence. The well-loved tournament player AJ Manas against the very polarizing hustler/money-game player Jaybee Sucal was a match made in pool-heaven. People piled up in a hot and sweaty pool hall in Cebu to get a glimpse of the two while approximately 200k(at one point) live online viewers from across the globe watch it on make-shift stream by amateur vloggers.

9. Rubilen Amit might have drank from the fountain of youth as she brought home her first WPA Women’s World 9-Ball crown from New Zealand last September. The 43yo added the 9-ball crown to her two 10-ball crowns she won over a decade ago. If it’s not a worthy Hall of Fame feat, I don’t know what is. Maybe it’s a Biado-Amit fight for the Hall Of Fame induction next year?