Kunihiko Takahashi

Kunihiko Takahashi, nicknamed the Sniper, is a Japanese professional pool player born on March 4, 1969, and a WPA World Nine-ball Champion. He began practicing pool at seventeen and turned professional in 1996. In 1998 he won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship by beating the reigning champion Johnny Archer in the final, becoming the second world nine-ball champion from Japan after Takeshi Okumura in 1994. In 1999 he won the ESPN Ultimate Shootout and earned forty thousand dollars. In a later world championship he came within three stages of a second title before losing to Earl Strickland, and he criticized Strickland's conduct in the match, an accusation Strickland denied.