Darren Appleton is the winner of the 2009 PartyPoker.net World Pool Masters.
Appleton, 33, was competing in the event for the first time and triumphed with an 8-4 victory over Nick van den Berg in the final at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
At the end of last year Appleton narrowly missed out on a place in the European Mosconi Cup side, despite winning the World 10-Ball Championship and admitted that fired him up ahead of this competition.
"It's unbelievable to win the World Pool Masters," said Appleton. "It has been my goal to win a Matchroom event and to win this is like winning another world title.
"After the 10-ball victory I put a lot of expectation on myself and hopefully this will help me get in the World Cup of Pool and the Mosconi Cup. We all want to play in Matchroom tournaments and this hasn't done me any harm.
"This gives me a lot more belief that I can go on and keep winning titles. My target has been to get in the Mosconi Cup and winning this puts me in the mix, It is every pool players dream to play in the Mosconi Cup.
"It's great to win titles like the World Pool Masters but to play in the European team against USA would be something else.
"Not being picked for last year's Mosconi Cup is probably my biggest disappoinment in pool. I won the world 10-ball but it wasn't as if I'd not won anything else. To not get picked was disappointing but at the same time Europe have dominated the game for the last 18 months and obviously won in December.
"There are eight to ten players fighting for five spots in the Mosconi so someone was always going to be disappointed to miss out. If there was six players I would've been in the team.
"Matchroom pick the team they think was right and the only good thing about not being in it was it made me more determined to win this."
The World Pool Masters featured 16 of the best players in the world competing in a single-elimination basis over three days of top class pool.
Appleton had a tough route to the final and actually defeated two of the members of the victorious European Mosconi Cup side before triumphing over van den Berg.
Despite only playing American pool for three years, Appleton has risen to the top of the sport. He started his Masters campaign with an 8-3 victory over India's Raj Hundal before claiming 8-7 and 8-6 victories over Germany's Ralf Souquet and Finland's Mika Immonen respectively.
In each of his four matches he had to come from behind to secure the victory and was 3-0 in his first three encounters.
"I probably didn't play as well in the final as I did in the semi-final," added Appleton. "I didn't break as well as I had done and neither did Nick - he had three dry breaks in the final.
"Nick recently won the European Championship so I had him as the favourite and had broke the best to get to the final.
"He's a great guy and we're very good friends so we both tried to enjoy the final and was just a shame someone had to lose.
"He was on a great run so to beat him in the final is a dream come true especially with the three other players that I defeated."
Earlier in the final session Van den Berg thrashed Shane Van Boening 8-2 and Appleton beat Mika Immonen 8-6 in the semi-finals.
Results
2009 PartyPoker.net World Pool Masters
Round 1
Alex Pagulayan 2-8 Nick van den Berg, Johnny Archer 8-2 Imran Majid, Shane van Boening 8-2 Yu Ram Cha, Niels Feijen 3-8 Tony Drago, Ralf Souquet 8-1 Ruslan Chinakhov, Darren Appleton 8-3 Raj Hundal, Dennis Orcollo 8-3 Tyler Edey, Mika Immonen 8-7 Fu Jian-bo.
Quarter-finals
Nick van den Berg 8-5 Johnny Archer, Shane van Boening 8-5 Tony Drago, Ralf Souquet 7-8 Darren Appleton, Dennis Orcollo 4-8 Mika Immonen.
Semi-finals
Nick van den Berg 8-2 Shane va Boening, Darren Appleton 8-6 Mika Immonen.
Final
Nick van den Berg 4-8 Darren Appleton.