Mosconi Cup

Logo of the Mosconi Cup

The Mosconi Cup is an annual nine-ball pool tournament contested between teams representing Europe and the USA since 1994. The trophy is named after American player Willie Mosconi, and has been compared to the Ryder Cup in golf.^[1] As of 2015, USA has won the tournament 11 times against 10 victories for Europe and one tie. The reigning champion is Team Europe.

Player selection

In its earliest days, the Mosconi Cup was created by Sky Sports and Matchroom Sport as an exhibition event to increase public awareness of pool in the United Kingdom. In the first year of competition some of the WPBA's top players played alongside the men in their respective teams. These included Franziska Stark from Germany, Allison Fisher from England, Jeanette Lee and Vivian Villarreal from the United States.

As time progressed, the event evolved from its exhibition nature into a much more serious and professional tournament, and earning a place in the event has acquired a great deal of prestige. Early on many snooker players participated, but of these only Steve Davis remained into the event's more serious era, bowing out when the event began to clash with snooker's UK Championship (for which he appeared as both a player and a BBC commentator).

After Davis' withdrawal, all players had to earn an invitation through their performances at other events, meaning that no more snooker players appeared until 2007, when Tony Drago earned a place by virtue of his performance on the European Pool Tour, and won the tournament's Most Valuable Player award for his unbeaten run in the singles matches.

Player appearances

The players to have appeared in the Mosconi Cup:^[2]

Legend		P = playing team member	NP = non-playing member

European players Appearance Name Country P NP 16 0 Ralf Souquet  Germany 15 0 Mika Immonen  Finland 11 0 Steve Davis  England 11 0 Niels Feijen  Netherlands 8 1 Oliver Ortmann  Germany 7 0 Darren Appleton  England 7 0 Nick van den Berg  Netherlands 6 1 Marcus Chamat  Sweden 4 0 Karl Boyes  England 4 0 Steve Knight  England 3 0 Thomas Engert  Germany 3 0 Thorsten Hohmann  Germany 2 2 Alex Lely  Netherlands 2 0 Tony Drago  Malta 2 0 Nick Ekonomopoulos  Greece 2 0 Mark Gray  England 2 0 Chris Melling  England 2 0 Ronnie O'Sullivan  England 2 0 Daryl Peach  England 2 0 Tom Storm  Sweden 2 0 Jimmy White  England 1 0 David Alcaide  Spain 1 0 Tommy Donlon  Ireland 1 0 Vincent Facquet  France 1 0 Allison Fisher  England 1 0 Alex Higgins  Northern Ireland 1 0 Raj Hundal  England 1 0 Lee Kendall  England 1 0 Albin Ouschan  Austria 1 0 Imran Majid  England 1 0 Fabio Petroni  Italy 1 0 Andy Richardson  England 1 0 Franziska Stark  Germany 1 0 Konstantin Stepanov  Russia 1 0 Lee Tucker  England 0 7 Johan Ruijsink  Netherlands

American players Appearance Name State P NP 17 0 Johnny Archer  Georgia 14 0 Earl Strickland  North Carolina 9 0 Corey Deuel  California 9 0 Rodney Morris  California 9 0 Shane Van Boening  South Dakota 7 0 Jeremy Jones  Texas 5 1 Charlie Williams  South Korea^1 4 4 Nick Varner  Kentucky 4 0 Dennis Hatch  Michigan 3 1 Kim Davenport  Oklahoma 3 0 Mike Dechaine  Maine 3 0 James Rempe  Pennsylvania 2 2 Mark Wilson  Missouri 2 0 Justin Bergman  Illinois 2 0 Lou Butera  Pennsylvania 2 0 Michael Coltrain  North Carolina 2 0 Shannon Daulton  Kentucky 2 0 Mike Gulyassy  Ohio 2 0 Robert Hunter  Michigan 2 0 Mike Massey  Tennessee 2 0 Reed Pierce  Mississippi 2 0 Shawn Putnam  Pennsylvania 2 0 Tony Robles  New York 2 0 John Schmidt  California 2 0 Dallas West  Illinois 1 1 C.J. Wiley  Texas 1 0 Mike Davis  North Carolina 1 0 John DiToro  Florida 1 0 Óscar Domínguez  California 1 0 Paul Gerni  New Jersey[3] 1 0 Roger Griffis  Texas 1 0 Justin Hall  Illinois 1 0 Danny Harriman  Maryland 1 0 Allen Hopkins  New Jersey 1 0 Bobby Hunter  Michigan 1 0 Jeanette Lee  New York 1 0 Gabe Owen  Kansas 1 0 Brandon Shuff  Virginia 1 0 Vivian Villarreal  Texas 1 0 Skyler Woodward  Kentucky 0 1 Buddy Hall  Illinois 0 1 Don Wardell ^1 Born outside the United States

Player representation

European nations

The total number of nations who have represented Europe is thirteen (in order of total representatives, alphabetically in the case of ties):

Number of players by country

15:   England	5:   Germany	4:   Netherlands	2:   Sweden	1:   Austria
1:   Finland	1:   France	1:   Greece	1:   Italy	1:   Malta
1:   Northern Ireland	1:   Republic of Ireland	1:   Russia	1:   Spain

American states

The total number of states who have represented the United States is twenty-one (in order of total representatives, alphabetically in the case of ties, Charlie Williams was born outside of the USA):

Number of players by state

4:   California	4:   Illinois	4:   Texas	3:   Michigan	3:   Kentucky
3:   North Carolina	3:   Pennsylvania	2:   New Jersey	2:   New York	1:   Florida
1:   Georgia	1:   Kansas	1:   Maine	1:   Maryland	1:   Mississippi
1:   Missouri	1:   Ohio	1:   Oklahoma	1:   South Dakota	1:   Tennessee
1:   Virginia

Tournament modifications

There have been rule changes and format changes throughout the tournament's brief history. These include, but are not limited to: "Non-playing captain" roles were introduced in the 2003 event; however these were removed in the 2004 tournament. In 2004 the doubles matches were re-formatted to be scotch doubles. In 2005, a 30-second shot clock was introduced, and caused controversy due to timing malfunctions. The 2006 tournament started with a team-versus-team match followed by two trebles matches. That year also saw the reintroduction of the non-playing captain role.

The 2009 tournament included several new features:^[4]

• No pairing in the doubles matches could be repeated.
• The event included four blocks of consecutive matches, organized so that five slots were available for each side, in which every player was required to play exactly once.
• In two singles matches, each player was selected by the opposing team captain.

Results table

Year	Venue	Victors	Score	Losers	MVP	Ref
1994	Romford, London, England	USA	16–12	Europe		[5]
1995	Basildon, Essex, England	Europe	16–15	USA		[6]
1996	Dagenham, London, England	USA	15–13	Europe		[7]
1997	Bethnal Green, London, England	USA	13–8	Europe		[8]
1998	Bethnal Green, London, England	USA	13–9	Europe		[9]
1999	Bethnal Green, London, England	USA	12–7	Europe		[10]
2000	Bethnal Green, London, England	USA	12–9	Europe		[11]
2001	Bethnal Green, London, England	USA	12–1	Europe		[12]
2002	Bethnal Green, London, England	Europe	12–9	USA		[13]
2003	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	USA	11–9	Europe	Mika Immonen	[14][15]
2004	Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands	USA	12–9	Europe	Rodney Morris	[16][17]
2005	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	USA	11–6	Europe	Earl Strickland	[18][19]
2006	Rotterdam, Netherlands	Tied	12–12	Tied	Corey Deuel	[20][21]
2007	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	Europe	11–8	USA	Tony Drago	[22][23]
2008	St. Julian's, Malta	Europe	11–5	USA	Mika Immonen	[24][25]
2009	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	USA	11–7	Europe	Dennis Hatch	[26][27]
2010	Bethnal Green, London, England	Europe	11–8	USA	Darren Appleton	[28]
2011	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	Europe	11–7	USA	Niels Feijen	[29][30]
2012	Bethnal Green, London, England	Europe	11–9	USA	Chris Melling	[31][32]
2013	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	Europe	11–2	USA	Niels Feijen	[33][34]
2014	Tower Circus, Blackpool, England	Europe	11–5	USA	Niels Feijen	[35][36]
2015	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	Europe	11–7	USA	Niels Feijen	[37]
2016	Alexandra Palace, London, England					[38]

See also

• List of sports competitions between teams representing continents

References

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2. "Tournament History". Matchroom Pool. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
3. "Paul Gerni". Official website. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
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20. "Europe 12–12 USA". Matchroom Pool. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2010.
21. "Archer: We Showed So Much Heart". Mosconi Cup 2006. Archived from the original on 15 February 2011. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
22. "Europe 8–11 USA". Matchroom Pool. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2010.
23. "Delight for MVP Drago and Europe". mosconicup.com. Matchroom Sport. Archived from the original on 15 November 2011. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
24. "Europe 11–5 USA". Matchroom Pool. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2010.
25. "Mika: Victory banishes ghosts of 06". Archived from the original on 23 July 2009. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
26. "Europe 7–11 USA". Mosconi Cup. 13 December 2009. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 10 December 2009.
27. "USA describe their pride at regaining Mosconi Cup". Matchroom Pool. 14 November 2009. Archived from the original on 1 February 2010. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
28. "Europe win the 2010 Mosconi Cup". Matchroom Sport. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2010.
29. "Feijen brings it home for Europe". Inside Pool. Archived from the original on 22 March 2012. Retrieved 11 December 2011.
30. "Europe hit the jackpot in Las Vegas". matchroompool.com. Matchroom Sport. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
31. "Mosconi Cup moves to a midweek slot". Matchroom Sport. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
32. "Europe retain Mosconi Cup". Matchroom Sport. Archived from the original on 18 February 2013. Retrieved 14 December 2012.
33. "Mirage named as 2013 venue". Kozoom.com. Archived from the original on 25 June 2014. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
34. "Mosconi Cup XX Live Blog". matchroompool.com. Matchroom Sport. 4 December 2013. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
35. "Blackpool Tower Circus to host 2014 Mosconi Cup". matchroompool.com. Matchroom Sport. 15 January 2014. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
36. "Mosconi Cup: Europe wrap up victory over USA in Blackpool". Sky Sports. 4 December 2014. Archived from the original on 6 December 2014. Retrieved 6 December 2014.
37. "New Tropicana in Las Vegas to host 2015 Mosconi Cup". Sky Sports. 19 March 2015. Archived from the original on 29 March 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
38. "EUROPE SEAL HARD FOUGHT VICTORY AT THE TROP". [Matchroom Pool]. 11 December 2015. Archived from the original on 11 December 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2015.

External links

• Official website