Matt Edwards (born 17 November 1987 in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

) is a New Zealand player of pool. Edwards is from Kaiapoi, North Canterbury. He started playing Pool at the age of 12. He is considered New Zealand’s greatest ever pool player, being a record twenty times New Zealand pool champion. In 2019 he became the first ever New Zealander to be invited to play in the 24 player invitational

World Pool Masters The World Pool Masters is an annual international nine-ball tournament. Formerly, it was called the European Pool Masters (until 1995) until players from other parts of the globe were invited. History Throughout much of its history, the tournament ...

held in Gibraltar where he made it to the quarter-finals.

Career

Edwards made his World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) debut in 2012 with the

2012 WPA World Nine-ball Championship The 2012 WPA World Nine-ball Championship was a professional nine-ball pocket billiards (pool) championship, sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and organised by Matchroom Sport. It was held from June 22 to 29 in Doha, Qatar, ...

the first New Zealander to qualify in the World Championship. At the event, Edwards defeated American

Shane Van Boening Shane Van Boening (; born July 14, 1983) is an American professional pool player from Rapid City, South Dakota. As of 2022, Van Boening is the number 1 ranked player in the "World Rankings" published by the Matchroom Pool and the "WPA Rankings ...

9–7 after trailing 1–5. He lost in the last-32 to the eventual winner Darren Appleton 11–10. In 2016, Edwards competed in the All Japan Championship where he defeated

Chang Jung-lin Chang Jung-lin (born May 2, 1985) is a Taiwanese 8-ball and Nine-ball pool player. He became WPA World Eight-ball Champion in 2012 and won the silver medal at the 2013 World Games for Nine-ball. Jun-Lin is a former world number 1, having don ...

9–7 who was the WPA world number one at the time. He finished the event in ninth place. Edwards was the first New Zealander to play in the

2017 World Games The 2017 World Games ( pl, Igrzyska Światowe 2017), commonly known as Wrocław 2017 (german: Breslau 2017; sli, Brassel 2017), was the tenth World Games, a major international multi-sport event, meant for sports, or disciplines or events withi ...

. At the championship, held in Poland, he defeated Russia's

Ruslan Chinakhov Ruslan Yuryevich Chinakhov (russian: Руслан Юрьевич Чинахов; born 25 January 1992) is a Russian professional primarily nine-ball pool player. Ruslan was the world nine-ball Juniors champion in 2009. Chinakhov has won several ...

11–10 in the last-16. He finished 5th place losing to Jayson Shaw in the quarter finals 5–11. In 2019 Edwards was selected to play in the 2019 World Pool Masters. In the first session Edwards defeated Chris Melling 7–3, the two players had never met in competition prior to this. In the second session Edwards defeated the European Pool Championships nine-ball winner Konrad Juszczyszyn 7–6. The match saw the players share the first six racks, at 3–3, before Juszczysyn took three racks to lead 6–3. Edwards then took the remaining four racks to win the match. He finished fifth place losing to Alexander Kazakis in the quarter-finals.

Championships and accomplishments

*New Zealand National Championships **Eight-ball (2015, 2016, 2019, 2020) **Nine-ball (2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021) **Ten-ball (2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021) *New Zealand Open **Nine-ball (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021)

Controversy

Matthew Edwards was suspected of dishonesty charges in October 2022. Edwards always claimed he was innocent of any wrongdoings. In April 2023 all charges were dropped.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Matt New Zealand pool players Sportspeople from Auckland 1987 births Living people