Daryl Peach

He reached a peak ranking of 250th in the world on the World Snooker Tour.

Daryl Peach (born 8 March 1972) is an English professional pool player, from Lancashire, who resides in Blackpool, England.

Peach was born on 8 March 1972 in Castleford, West Yorkshire, England, and moved to Blackpool when he was 14 years old.

Originally a snooker player, he turned professional in 1991 but was unable to reach the TV stages of any tournaments.

Peach played alongside the likes of Ronnie O'Sullivan, Mark Williams and John Higgins, who were all battling in the qualifying rounds at the same time.

He has also represented Europe in the Mosconi Cup in 1995 and 2007, and was a member of the winning team on both occasions.

Peach was the youngest winner of the World Pool Masters, his first pool tournament, winning the 1995 event at the age of 23 years and three months.

He is also the first player to have been ranked number one in the UK rankings, European tour rankings, and WPA World rankings concurrently.

His last snooker tournament was the 1995 Welsh Open, where he lost 4–5 to Matthew Stevens in the opening qualifying round.

Following this loss, Peach was convinced by a friend to take up nine-ball pool, and he entered a UK ranking event "just to see".

He won this event in convincing fashion, beating some of the highest ranked UK players along the way.

After this initial win, he entered the next three UK ranking events, winning them all to make it four out of four.

He quickly rose to the top of the UK pool rankings, and consequently received an invitation to the 1995 European Pool Masters tournament (which later became the World Pool Masters).

He sailed through the event and defeated Lee Kendall in the final, making Peach the youngest winner of the tournament at age 23 years and three months.

He was then invited to represent Europe at the 1995 Mosconi Cup, partnering pool players Kendall, Oliver Ortmann and Tom Storm, and snooker players Steve Davis, Alex Higgins and Jimmy White.

The European team won the series, 16–15, with Peach playing an integral part in Europe's first-ever victory in the event.

Following his huge successes, Peach decided not to renew his professional snooker status, opting to play pool instead.

After the promising start to his pool career, Peach spent the next few years cementing his place at the top of the UK rankings, playing between 25 and 30 UK ranking events per year.

He slowly started to filter more and more European events into his calendar, along with the occasional world major event.

He competed in the World Pool Masters, twice reaching the semi-finals.

He reached the quarter-finals of the 2004 WPA World Eight-ball Championship, where he lost to Michael Schmidt 7–10.

Peach was also starting to make a breakthrough on the tough Euro Tour, reaching the semi-finals of the Austria Open, and later the final of the German Open where he finished runner-up to Ortmann.

In 2005, Peach reached the main stages of all six Euro Tour events.

He progressed to the round-of-16 stage at the Belgium and Swiss Opens, the quarter-finals at the German and Costa Del Sol Opens, and the semi-finals of the Austria Open.

He later reached the quarter-finals of the WPA World Eight-ball Championship, after defeating Ralf Souquet in the round of 16, losing to eventual champion Wu Jia-qing.

His season results led him to become the number one ranked player in the United Kingdom, a position that was becoming to be a given for Peach.

This success gave him the opportunity to represent England at the 2006 World Cup of Pool doubles event, where he partnered Steve Davis.

In the first round, the pair defeated the South Korean team of Jeong Young-hwa and Lee Gun-jae 9–6, but lost in the quarter-finals to Earl Strickland and Rodney Morris of the United States.

In late 2006, Peach decided to enter a qualifying event in Holland to win a place on the new International Pool Tour (IPT), which he won.

He won the 2007 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, where he defeated the Philippines' Roberto Gomez 17–15 in the final to become the first British player to win the WPA World Nine-ball Championship.

Peach is a five-time winner on the Euro Tour, having won events from 2007 until 2012.

With a total of nine medals from tour events, Peach is the tenth most successful player on the tour of all time.

In 2007, Peach won his first Euro Tour event, the German Open.

En route to the final, he beat Alex Lely 10–6, Dzmitry Chuprov 10–3, Niels Feijen 10–7, Thorsten Hohmann 10–7, and David Alcaide 10–5.

In the final, he defeated Dimitri Jungo 10–3.

In November, Peach entered the 2007 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, held at the Araneta Coliseum in Manila, Philippines (the same arena where Muhammad Ali defeated Joe Frazier in the famous "Thriller in Manila" fight), seeded 17th for the event.

He won his double elimination rounds, reaching the knockout rounds.

Representing England with partner Mark Gray, Peach has competed at the World Cup of Pool on six occasions, reaching the final in 2008 and 2015.

Peach represented Great Britain and won the inaugural World Team Championship in 2010.

He played in the IPT World Open (eight-ball), finishing in 17th place, and the IPT North American Open, where he finished seventh.