Francisco Sanchez Ruiz and Robbie Capito meet in the final of the 2026 US Open Pool Championship on Sunday in Frisco, Texas, with the Spaniard chasing a second crown and Capito bidding to become the latest first-time champion at the sport’s second-richest tournament.
It has been anything but a smooth run for 2022 champion Sanchez Ruiz. He suffered a seismic second round shock when he was beaten 9-4 by Croatian veteran Ivica Putnik, banishing him onto the one-loss side. The Spaniard had to dig deep just to survive, recovering from 6-4 down against Vincent Goh to edge an 8-6 win and keep his hopes alive.
From there, Sanchez Ruiz has been close to unstoppable. He took down Sun Yi-Hsuan, Petri Makkonen and Alex Kazakis to reach the final eight, before surviving heavyweight tests against former champion Joshua Filler and Spanish amigo David Alcaide to book his place in the final.
Victory on Sunday would make Sanchez Ruiz just the tenth player in the tournament’s history to win multiple US Open titles, joining a list of legends that includes Mike Sigel, David Howard, Earl Strickland, Nick Varner, Buddy Hall, Mika Immonen, Darren Appleton and Shane van Boening. It would also secure him a first title since the 2024 Peri Open in Vietnam, as well as his return to both the Reyes Cup and the Mosconi Cup.
Standing in his way is Capito, who has enjoyed another breakout run. The Hong Kong cueist won his maiden WNT major at the UK Open two years ago, and a win in Texas would see him follow a similar path blazed by Aloysius Yapp – achieving an elusive major at the UK Open before going on to lift the US Open crown as well.
Capito played lights out and compiled a late three-pack to beat 2024 champion Fedor Gorst 10-8 in the quarter-finals, the sixth consecutive time he has defeated the former world number one on the World Nineball Tour, before edging past Phoenix Open winner Aleksa Pecelj in another hard-fought battle to reach the final.
That win over Gorst carries extra significance beyond Capito’s own run: it means this will be the first US Open final without Gorst involved since Sanchez Ruiz won the title back in 2022. Gorst had reached three consecutive finals coming into this year’s event, and was on course to match a record held by Efren Reyes before Capito put him to the sword.
Should Capito complete the job on Sunday, he would become the first player from outside the world’s top 16 to win the US Open since Kevin Cheng’s surprise triumph back in 2015.
History favours Sanchez Ruiz heavily, with the Spaniard holding a 7-1 winning record over Capito. Most of those meetings have come in the shorter race-to-five format of Premier League Pool, a very different test to a US Open final, although FSR did run out victorious on his way to winning the 2022 World 8-Ball Championship.
Whether Sanchez Ruiz’s pattern holds under the bright lights in front of the ESPN cameras or whether Capito carries his momentum into the biggest match of his life, Texas will be treated to a thrilling conclusion to the 49th US Open Championship.
Prediction: 13-10 Capito
