Niels Feijen is a professional pool

Pocket billiards

Pool, also more formally known as pocket billiards or pool billiards , is the family of cue sports and games played on a pool table having six receptacles called pockets along the , into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play. Popular versions include eight-ball and nine-ball...

 player, from the Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

, Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. His nickname is "the Terminator".

In 2001, Feijen reached the finals of a nine-ball tournament in Tokyo, Japan. The event had a field of more than 700 players and offered the largest prize money at that time. However, he lost to Efren Reyes

Efren Reyes

Efren Manalang Reyes is a Filipino professional pool player and a two-time world champion. Reyes is considered by many to be the greatest all-around pool player in the history of the game. He is affectionately nicknamed "Bata" and "the Magician".-Early life:Reyes was born in Pampanga in 1954...

. In 2004, he won the inaugural Skins Billiards Championship

Skins Billiards Championship

The Skins Billiards Championship was an annual nine-ball tournament held in the US. It was promoted by Allen Hopkins Productions and Billiards International, and was broadcast on ESPN. While most pool tournaments pit pairs of players against each other in , this unusual event pits four...

 with prize money of US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

42,500. Feijen has won the Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an straight pool championship four times. In 2005 he was the winner of the Big Apple Nine-ball Classic, held in Queens

Queens

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, an event with 128 of the world's best players. He represented Europe in the 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009 Mosconi Cup

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 is modeled on and compared to the Ryder Cup in golf...

 events.

More recently, Feijen won the 2007 $50,000 winner-take-all International Challenge of Champions

International Challenge of Champions

The International Challenge of Champions is an annual nine-ball pool tournament held at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. It has always been broadcast on ESPN and is sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association...

 by defeating Lee Van Corteza

Lee Van Corteza

Lee Vann Corteza is a Filipino professional pool player. He is nicknamed "Van Van", and started playing pool in 1993...

. In 2008, Feijen won the World Straight Pool Championship

World Straight Pool Championship

The World Straight Pool Championship is an annual pocket billiards competition held in New Brunswick, New Jersey, since 2006. It is the current global professional title for straight pool , and is organized by Dragon Promotions, in part to restore the game's popularity in the United States...

 with a victory over Francisco Bustamante

Francisco Bustamante

Francisco Bustamante is a Filipino professional pocket billiards player from Tarlac, and the 2010 World Nine-ball Champion., nicknamed "Django", after the lead character of the film of the same name, and sometimes also called "Bustie", especially in the United States.-Early life:Bustamante is the...

 in the finals. On October 5, 2008, he received the 3rd prize of $25,000 in the inaugural WPA

World Pool-Billiard Association

The World Pool-Billiard Association is the international governing body for pocket billiards . The group was formed in 1987, and was initially headed by a provisional board of directors consisting of representatives from Japan, the United States, Sweden, and Germany...

 World Ten-ball Championship.

Niels Feijen has been under contract with cue

Cue stick

A cue stick , is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the...

 manufacturer Longoni

Longoni

Longoni SRL is one of the most prominent European manufacturers of high-end cue sticks. The company, founded by Alessandro Longoni in 1945, is based in Mariano Comense, Italy...

 for several years.

In 2010, Feijen reached the finals of the WPA World Eight-ball Championship

WPA World Eight-ball Championship

The WPA World Eight-ball Championship is a professional eight-ball pocket billiards tournament held in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, and sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Association. A total of 64 participants compete in the event, which typically has a total prize purse over US$100,000...

 but ended up in 2nd place as he was dominated by Karl Boyes of Great Britain. He would reach the finals of that same tournament for the second consecutive time in 2011 but only to be defeated by Dennis Orcollo of the Philippines.

External links

• http://www.worldpoolmasters.com/players/feijen.asp WorldPoolMasters.com 2006 profile of Niels Feijen
• http://www.azbilliards.com/2000storya.cfm?storynum=2931 AzBilliards.com August 14, 2005 report on Niels Feijen's win of the 2005 Big Apple Nine-ball Classic
• Niels Feijen 2008 World 14.1 Championship Winning Video