Mosconi Cup 2012 - London

The Mosconi Cup

The Mosconi Cup is less than one month away. This superb event is the pinnacle of the 9-ball pool calendar.

Team Europe vs. Team USA.

The Mosconi Cup is an annual nine-ball pool tournament between teams representing Europe and the USA that has been held since 1994. The trophy is named after American player Willie Mosconi and is modelled on and compared to the Ryder Cup in golf.

As of 2011, the USA has won the tournament 11 times against 6 victories for Europe and one tie.

The defending winning team going into 2012 is Team Europe. This year's event will be played on Monday 10th December through to Thursday 13th December. The Venue is the York Hall in London. The Mosconi Cup has previously featured some of the most famous players in pool and snooker, including Earl Strickland, Johnny Archer, Jimmy White, Alex Higgins, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Ralf Souquet, and Steve Davis.

In its earliest days, the Mosconi Cup was created by Sky Sports and Matchroom Sport as an exhibition event to increase public awareness of the pool game in the UK.

In the first year of competition, some of the WPBA's top players played alongside the men on their respective teams. These included Franziska Stark (Germany), Allison Fisher (England), Jeanette Lee (US) and Vivian Villarreal (US).

As time progressed, the event evolved from its exhibition into a much more serious and professional tournament, and earning a place in the event has acquired great prestige. Of the snooker players, 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 through his performance on the European Pool Tour and won the tournament's Most Valuable Player award for his unbeaten run in the singles matches.

Each team is picked through tournament ranking points and wild card selections. The top 2 ranked players will automatically gain entry into the European and American 2012 Mosconi Cup squads. Matchroom Sport wildcard picks will select the remaining three players, although the ranking will play a part in this.