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Masako Katsura (桂 マサ子, March 7, 1913 – 1995), nicknamed “Katsy” and sometimes called the “First Lady of Billiards”, was a Japanese carom billiards player who was most active in the 1950s.

The UMB organization was in the well-known hands of the BEN organization team with JUMBO as the main event sponsor, under the auspices of the European Billiard Confederation (CEB) and the Royal Dutch Billiard Federation (KNBB).

Dear billiards friends,
We started the year 2021 with good news, with the confidence that conditions will improve quickly, and that the situation will soon return to “normal” distancing, as the COVID-19 Worldwide vaccination progresses. We hope that we all safely will return to our daily activities and that we will finally stop suffering from this tragic pandemic. Our sport, like all other sports, will then resume its international events, following the recovery of national sports activities as their COVID_19 situation will permit.

The UMB Virtual Challenges attracted a great audience with almost 1 million views. This means that every match was followed by 16.000 viewers on average over all media platforms.

The introduction of UMB Virtual Challenges during this COVID-19 times has been a great success, far beyond our expectations.

Antalya was his home for two weeks. Not only did Dani Sánchez win the CEB European team title with his compadre Ruben Legazpi, he also won the UMB World Cup in the same city. After two lesser seasons and a small drop in the world ranking, the Spaniard is back at the summit of international 3-cushion. His win in Turkey raises him back to sixth place.

Immediately following two CEB events, the European Championships for Ladies and the European Championship for National teams, the Turkish city of Antalya will host the first UMB World Cup of 2020.

Today’s final of the 3-Cushion European Championship for National Teams in Antalya/Turkey was as exciting as it was thrilling. The hosts with Semih Sayginer and Murat Naci Coklu met Daniel Sanchez and Ruben Legazpi from Spain.

Therese Klompenhouwer remains the Women’s 3-Cushion European Champion. At the championships in Antalya, Turkey, the Dutchwoman won the final against her compatriot Karina Jetten with 30:20 after 21 innings.

In a few weeks, the 2020 World Cup season will begin with a tournament in Antalya, Turkey. Not a bad moment to take a look at the World Cup history of the country that once had just one superstar (Semih Sayginer) and can now easily point to a dozen players who are world class.

From 1993 to 1996, there was a World Cup in Istanbul every year. The winners: Sang Chun Lee, Jaspers, Blomdahl and again Blomdahl. The remarkable thing in these years was, that Raymond Ceulemans was the losing finalist three years in a row! Istanbul has now hosted a World Cup eight times.