The World Nineball Tour heads for Brentwood, Essex for the UK Open Pool Championship which features a 256-player field competing for a £40,000 first prize.
Aloysius Yapp, Fedor Gorst, Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, Jayson Shaw, Joshua Filler, Eklent Kaci and Robbie Capito are among the stars in action and Yapp will be out to make a successful defence of the title which he won last year.
The tables are set for six days of cracking pool action and there is no end of title contenders.
UK Open Pool Championship Tips Summary
Best Bet - Moritz Neuhausen @ 20/1
Alternative Bet - Aloysius Yapp @ 11/1
Alternative Bet - Tyler Styer @ 100/1
UK Open Pool Championship Prediction
Best Bet: Moritz Neuhausen @ 20/1
Moritz Neuhausen is a potter on the rise and the German looks ready to be crowned UK Open champion this week.
The 22-year-old enjoyed a breakout year in 2025, winning the Premier League Pool final and claiming his first major Matchroom title.
The Gummersbach cueman crushed Francisco Sanchez Ruiz 7-0 in the Premier League final and that wasn’t where the success ended for the German.
Neuhausen starred under maximum pressure at last year’s Mosconi Cup, claiming the MVP in the Europe v USA competition and the titles have continued to roll in 2026.
The German recovered from 7-2 down to beat Mario He 13-7 in the final of the European Open and that title marked the first major open glory of his career.
That success is added to the 22-year-old’s victory in the Peri Open and a Hanoi Open final and it’s clear that Neuhausen is a contender for nineball’s major prizes.
Winning 11 racks on the bounce against He in a top-level final indicates the peak which Neuhausen can reach and there could still be more to come for a young player on the up.
There is no shortage of title rivals in Essex, with defending champion Aloysius Yapp back to retain his crown and form UK Open kings Joshua Filler, Eklent Kaci, and Robbie Capito also in the field.
However, the 20/1 on offer about Neuhausen is a price worth taking.
Alternative Bet: Aloysius Yapp @ 11/1
Aloysius Yapp has happy memories of the UK Open having defeated Jonss Souto 13-1 in last year’s final.
The defending champion made history in 2025 by becoming the first-ever player to win three Matchroom Open titles consecutively when collecting the UK Open, Florida Open and US Open crowns.
It was an impressive streak for the Singaporean, who has twice successfully defended the International Open trophy, which the 30-year-old first won in 2024.
Yapp switched codes to win the WPA World Eight-ball Championship last month, which indicates that he is playing at the peak of his game and there were some impressive performances in the early rounds of the nineball Scottish Open earlier this month.
The former world junior champion has come of age, to become one of the most impressive potters around, and another successful defence could await the excellent UK Open champion.
Alternative Bet: Tyler Styer @ 100/1
Tyler Styer reached the semi-finals of last year’s UK Open and there could still be more to come from the American.
The 31-year-old beat former UK Open king Joshua Filler on his way to the last four of the competition 12 months ago and that effort indicates that the Wisconsin ace can compete with pool’s elite.
Styer only lost 11-8 to eventual champion Aloysius Yapp last year and the former Big Dog 9-Ball champion and Chuck Markulis Memorial winner is not to be dismissed in essex.
The American is 100/1 on the outright market and he looks capable of outrunning those odds.
This article was written by a partner sports writer via Spotlight Sports Group. All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to withdrawal or change at any time.
