Time Frame

DESPITE ALL the math whizzes claiming the decade isn’t over until we hit 2011 (because, all together now, there was no year zero!), the 2000s are done and gone. Maybe not a golden age for pool, the past 10 years still offered plenty of on-table drama.

And to that end, as we roll our calendars over from ’09 to 2010, it’s time we look back and designate the one man and one woman who best represent the era — the BD Players of the Decade.

The choice on the women’s side of the game was almost a no-brainer. Allison Fisher, Player of the Decade for the 90s, continued her dominance well into the new millennium. The Duchess of Doom rolled through the first seven years of the 2000s as the world’s best player, winning seven of the first eight Player of the Year awards, only allowing Karen Corr to break up her streak in 2001.

Among the men, though, the discussion is not nearly as cut and dry. Run through the roster of Players of the Year for the 2000s, and you’ll see the 10 awards were divvied up among eight men, with only Mika Immonen (’08-’09) and Johnny Archer (’03-’04) winning the award multiple times. Additionally, Efren Reyes never once earned the annual honor, despite being the leader in tournament money (by a very large margin).

Rummaging through the patchwork of tours and tournaments, though, and you’ll see four candidates separate themselves from the pack. With accomplishments previously stated, Immonen, Archer and Reyes deserve mention. 2006 Player of the Year Ralf Souquet, as one of the more consistent and well-traveled pros, also earned healthy consideration.

But selecting the one winner from this group isn’t exactly a clean process. It’s not as simple as tallying up rankings point or measuring bankrolls; and there’s no formula to compare a title won in Parsippany, N.J., to a championship from Stockholm, Sweden.

Furthermore, there’s no qualifier attached to Player of the Decade — it’s not the richest player or the most consistent player or the most feared player. It’s simply the player of the era — the one player who will be indelibly linked to past 10 years.

To that end, Mika Immonen — as a two-time world champion, as the first back-to-back U.S. Open champion in nearly 20 years, as the person who utterly dominated the game for nearly two years — is the Player of the Decade

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