Player: Mieszko Fortunski
Event: 2024 U.K. Open Pool Championship
Location: Telford, United Kingdom
Date: May 8, 2024



It's been an unkept secret that Poland has been a steady producer of top-quality talent in the last decade or so. After not making much noise on the global or European scene as Germany and the U.K. were dominant in producing internationally competitive players, Poland has a handful of pros who can threaten deep runs in world championships.

Mieszko Fortunski is one of those individuals. Winning on the ultra-competitive Euro Tour along with two European 10-Ball Championships (in 2019 and 2021), the 32-year-old broke out in a big way at the 2024 Matchroom U.K. Open Pool Championship. He survived a single-elimination bracket of killers to book a spot in the final. Although he lost to Robbie Caputo, Fortunski showed his top gear.

But funny enough, his event almost ended before those 64 players had qualified for the knockout stage. After losing to Oscar Dominguez in the group stage, Fortunski faced a do-or-die set against 2023 World Pool Championship silver medalist Mohammad Soufi.

In the race-to-9, Fortunski jumped out to an early 4-2 lead. In a pivotal seventh rack, he faced a tricky, albeit painfully straightforward, look at the 8 ball, shown in the diagram. The object ball was an inch off the rail, but he had enough space to send the cue ball to the right as the 8 tracked to the upper right corner.

With steely nerves, Fortunski popped the 8 ball off the foot rail and back down-table, putting just enough weight on the cue ball to go two rails for simple position on the 9.

From there, he ran away from Soufi, clinching his spot in the knockout stage, 9-3.

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