MANILA -- We wind up the World Ten Ball Championship today at the Philippine International Convention Center with the final matchup between Wu Chia-ching of Chinese Taipei and Darren Appleton of Great Britain.It's an interesting final between the player -- Wu -- who has been touted by experts (Jerry Forsyth among others) all week as the favorite to take the first world ten ball title, and the darkest horse who came from nowhere to strike down so many top rated players in the tournament.

Wu's demolition of Shane van Boening and Mika Immonen -- two players who had been playing strong until they run into the Taiwanese machine -- had many observers gasping. Jay Helfert declared to me: "Wu is a great player. He is so good he made Shane look weak." Just about the only show of weakness on Wu's part was in his semifinal match yesterday with Demosthenes Pulpul of the Philippines. After the Filipino stormed back from an 0-5 deficit to take seven straight racks, Wu wobbled a little bit. But only momentarily, as he composed himself and soon sprinted to victory by the score of 11-8.

Appleton's challenge to him will be a matter of slowing Wu down. While Wu is fast and spectacular, Darren is workmanlike and highly tactical in his game. He showed it in his match with Niels Feijen, who had been picked to face Wu in the final. Niels had shown all week that he deserved the buzz around him about being possibly named as Player of the Year. Yet Darren cut him down in a series of safety duels and through precision play. In the end, it was the Dutchman who gave way to nerves and not the Briton.

Regardless of who wins this final, however, the game of ten ball has taken off in our world of pool through this first-ever world championship. We will see this game in tournaments for years and years to come.

The players who journeyed far to compete in this tournament are unanimous in saying that ten ball is a great game -- better than nine ball. They love the WPA rules for the game, which prescribe the call shot and reduce the luck factor to a minimum. Indeed, the word players use to describe the rules is astonishing -- they call them "perfect." They like the return of the power break to the game, and all are probing for ways to consistently sink a ball on the break and have position on the 1-ball. Above all, they love the competitiveness that ten ball brings to matches. All of us here have never seen so many matches go hill-hill in a tournament. At one point in the Last 16 round of matches, the three remaining matches to be concluded were all hill-hill.

Just as significant, ten ball and the WTBC have served as a vehicle for breaking the gender barrier in pool. Jasmin Ouschan's performance in this championship has laid to rest once and for all all doubts that women can compete toe-to-toe against men in top-notch pool competition. Ten ball, far from being tougher on women, has enabled them to be more competitive. Jasmin's conquest of the much-respected Thomas Engert last Wednesday, which was seen around the world on television and the Internet, vividly brought that home to players and fans -- not least female players who now will enter open tournaments with some confidence that they too can win. Jasmin because of her looks and flair brings charisma to the sport. And it may be that pool has been raised a notch thanks to her feat.

Another notable service of this tournament is the opportunity it has provided for new and young players to show their stuff. Until the WTBC, few had heard of Liu Haitao of China, Mark Gray of Great Britain, Jerico Banares and Demosthenes Pulpul of the Philippines, to mention just some. This championship was their world debut, and what a debut it has been. I think the meaning of this is that the talent level in pool is deep around the world. It's not limited to so-called marquee names. What has been lacking is simply top-level competition in all continents and regions.

When we at Raya dared to mount this inaugural World Ten Ball Championship, we were basically rolling the die and hoping that they would come up seven or eleven. All I had was a hunch that the game would fly because I had seen with my own eyes the game in play and its tremendous appeal to serious players. The prospects were daunting. Would players from all over the world come to compete? Would sponsors support the event? How would it play on television?

The answers we have gotten this week have been gratifying. The players and the fans love ten ball. TV audiences of ESPN and ABS-CBN are watching with enthusiasm. Even this early, the broadcasts are being pirated and rebroadcast on the Internet. Our websites at the WPA and Raya have been seeing record visitors and hits.There is tremendous interest in what is going on here in Manila.

As the WTBC was being played at the PICC, I have had the most encouraging discussions with people about how pool can move forward in coming years. I had a discussion with a major international sports network about partnering in promoting pool long-term. I heard offers about staging open ten ball tournaments in several Asian capitals. I heard about how China will mount a major tournament next year. I got a briefing about the program developing in the Middle East, where more money is being poured into our sport. This is the kind of stuff that makes the future of pool so encouraging.

As a promoter and pool enthusiast, I see my role as essentially to take our sport to a new level, to open new doors, and to drum up more support. It's never been my priority to make Filipinos win in the world championships we have hosted, though I erupt with joy when it happens. My focus is on the sport and the events. The task is to build the Wimbledons and the world tour for pool.

For the longest time, pool has been knocking on the doors of bigtime sports, only to slide back to obscurity again because of missteps and over-reaching. Just when we think our sport has attained a high level of success -- as in the IPT tournaments -- something happens and the ball rolls downhill again to the shallows. Just when we imagine that there is a consensus in the international pool community on how to move forward, we are set back by dissensions and disputes.

Without overstating the point, I think we may have found in the WTBC in Manila one more good vehicle for getting together and moving forward. In this tournament, we have learned beyond doubt how vital is the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and the continental federations for mounting an international event and making it work. We see how important the players are to our sport, how we must attend to the needs of all players, not just the so-called stars. And we have gained invaluable insights into such issues as generating sponsorship support, forging public-private coooperation, enabling players to join more competitions, and running tournaments better.

Some of us make the mistake of thinking that for our sport to take off, a particular kind of player should win and not another. That charisma is indispensable. That here in Manila a Filipino must win in order for us to do this all over again. I have no patience with this nonsense. The joy of sports inheres in competition. And the more players and countries competing the better. Sports is not show business or make-believe. Sports is history.

Regardless of who wins between Wu and Darren in the WTBC today, they are making history for pool. And we are all the better for it.