Kristina Olegovna Tkach (; born 19 January 1999) is a Russian professional pool player. She became the 2017 WPA World Nine-ball Junior Championship winner, defeating Lee Woo-jin in the final 9–6. Tkach is a four time

European champion A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers to a ...

having won the

eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes, bigs and smalls, big ones and little ones, or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of Pool (cue sports), pool played on a billiard tabl ...

event in 2016 and 2019, as well as

Straight pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a Cue sports, cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many s as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of Pool (cue sports), pool play ...

in 2017 and 2019. In addition, she is a nine-time Junior European Champion. Tkach is a regular player on the

Euro Tour The Euro Tour is a series of professional pool events set around Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlanti ...

events, reaching the Tour number one in 2016. She is the second most successful player of all time on the tour behind

Jasmin Ouschan Jasmin Ouschan (; born 10 January 1986) is an Austrian professional pool player from Klagenfurt, Carinthia. Her first professional competition occurred in 2002, but she did not officially become a professional member of the Women's Professional ...

, having won seven events beginning with the 2016 North Cyprus Open.

Career

Kristina Tkach was born 19 January 1999 in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, Russia. Tkach began playing in 2008, being supported by her parents to take up the game.

Early career (2008–2014)

Before turning 10 years of age, Tkach finished third at the Russian Under 18 Championship 2008 in

. Tkach then moved in 2009 to play

straight pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a Cue sports, cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many s as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of Pool (cue sports), pool play ...

competing in the Moscow Under 18 City Championship final, finishing as runner-up and also reaching the semi-finals in the women's competition

nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...

. The following year she won the junior women in nine-ball and

ten-ball Ten-ball is a rotation pool game similar to nine-ball, but using ten balls instead of nine, and with the 10 ball instead of the 9 as the "". Although the game has existed since the early 1960s, its popularity has risen since the early 2000s as a ...

her first two out of a total of twenty titles at Moscow Under 18 Championships. Tkach also competed in the ladies event at the championship where she lost in the final 18–50 against Anna Mashirina. In 2012 Tkach played in her first European Youth Championships, at which she was the youngest medal winner at 13 years and 7 months. She had reached the semi-finals in the eight-ball event losing to

Kamila Khodjaeva Kamilla and Kamila are feminine given names used in a number of languages and throughout history with roots in Slavic, Arabic, and South Asian languages and Latin. Both Kamila and Kamilla are popular names in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and Ita ...

. In November 2012, she reached her first adult Russian championship semi-final, in both the straight pool and eight-ball events. In the European youth Championship 2013 she reached the semi-finals in both the ten-ball and nine-ball disciplines. In October 2013, she won three of the four titles at the Moscow City Championship in the women's events. A month later she reached her first adult Russian championship finals, but lost to Anna Maschirina (ten-ball) and Daria Sirotina (nine-ball). In addition, she finished in straight and in eight-ball in third place, reaching the semi-final or better in all five events.

Euro Tour number 1 (2014–present)

In March 2014, she played in her first Women's European Championship. After she was eliminated in both the straight and ten-ball events in the preliminary round, she reached the quarter-finals in the eight-ball, in which she against defeated by the

5–6. After the European Championships, Tkach played in her first

event, won her first medal, by finishing second at the 2014 North Cyprus Open, being defeated by

. In August, Tkach won the eight-ball Junior European Pool Championship with a 5–4 final victory against Kamila Khodjaeva. At the beginning of 2015, Tkach became the Russian under-18 champion in all four disciplines for the first time. In November 2015 she reached the WPA World Junior Championship the quarter-final before losing to Chinas Jiang Teng. Despite being eliminated in the first round of the straight pool event and in the ten-ball in the quarter-finals, she reached the final of eight-ball event of the 2015 European championships. She won the match 6–3 against Kateryna Polowyntschuk, to win her first European Championship. In June 2016, she won the 2016 North Cyprus Open, defeating Marharyta Fjafilawa 7–3, to win her first Euro Tour tournament. At the 2016 Junior European Championships won three events, defeating Diana Khodjaeva 5–3 and 6–5, (ten-ball, nine-ball) and Dina Fatychowa 5–1, (eight-ball). A few days later, she won 7–4 in the final against Katarzyna Wesołowska to win the 2016 Albanian Open. The win made Tkach the number one-ranked player on the Euro Tour. The following season Tkach won the 2016 Portugal Open against

Ina Kaplan Ina Kaplan ( Jentschura; born 14 May 1987) is a German professional pool player. She is an eleven-time German national champion and is the second female player (after Franziska Stark) to win three of four disciplines in one event at the champi ...

7–4 winning her third Euro Tour event in a row. During the 2016 Kremlin World Cup, Tkach, along with Daria Sirotina was the only woman the round of the last 32 where she lost to

Denis Grabe Denis Grabe (born February 22, 1990, in Tallinn, Estonia), is an Estonian professional pool player. Grabe won the Las Vegas open in 2025 beating Joshua Filler in the finals. Sets 2-2 and in shootout 4-3, winning his biggest tournament of his c ...

. She won her fifth Euro Tour medal at the 2017 Portugal Open losing 3–7 to Ouschan in the final. After finishing second in the one-year ranking of the Euro Tour after the Portugal Open, she qualified for the nine-ball Competition the World Games 2017. At the Games in

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

she lost in the quarter-finals against the subsequent gold medal winner Chen Siming. In the European Youth Championship 2017 she again won all three competitions for junior women. In the finals she defeated Daryna Sirantschuk (5–0, ten-ball), Weronika Karwik (5–0, eight-ball), Valery Trushevskaya (6–1, nine-ball). In November 2017, Tkach entered the 2017 WPA World Nine-ball Junior Championship where she reached the final before defeating Lee Woo-jin to become junior world champion. She was the fifth European and the second Russian, after Natalja Seroschtan (2013) to win the title. In April 2019, she won the Women's Pro Players Championship and was presented with a trophy made of

waterford crystal Waterford Crystal is an Irish manufacturer of crystal glassware, especially cut glass products. It is named after the city of Waterford in Ireland. In January 2009, the main Waterford Crystal manufacturing base on the edge of Waterford was cl ...

, valued at $500. The trophy shattered when a member of Tkach's entourage dropped the box it was in while transporting it out of the arena.

Team career

With the Russian national team Tkach won the European Championships in 2015 and 2017, with runner-up finishes in 2014 and 2016. Tkach was part of the European team that defeated the USA three times in a row in the first three editions of the Atlantic Challenge Cup (2015, 2016, 2017).

Titles & Achievements

* 2024 Billiards Digest

Player of the Year Several sports leagues honour their best player with an award called Player of the Year. In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award. Association football In association football, this award is held on b ...

* 2024 WPA Women's World Ten-ball Championship * 2024 WPBA Railyard Invitational * 2024 WPBA Iron City Invitational * 2022 American Straight Pool Championship * 2022 Big Tyme Classic 9-Ball * 2021 Michael Montgomery Memorial * 2021 Euro Tour Lasko Open * 2021 Midwest Billiards and Cue Expo 9-Ball * 2019 Super Billiards Expo Players Championship * 2019

Treviso Open * 2019

European Pool Championship European Pool Championship (also called Dynamic European Championships) is a pool competition organized by the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF). The tournament is held annually since 1980. It should not be confused with the series of sma ...

Eight-ball Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes, bigs and smalls, big ones and little ones, or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of Pool (cue sports), pool played on a billiard tabl ...

* 2019 WPBA Sondheim Diamond Invitational * 2018

Italian Open * 2018

Portugal Open The Portugal Open (formerly named Estoril Open) was an ATP and WTA clay court tennis tournament in Portugal. The event took place at the sports complex of Jamor in Oeiras, of which Estoril Court Central is the most prominent show court. In 201 ...

* 2018

Treviso Open * 2017 WPA World Nine-ball Junior Championship * 2017 Russian Pool Championship

* 2017 Russian Pool Championship

Ten-ball Ten-ball is a rotation pool game similar to nine-ball, but using ten balls instead of nine, and with the 10 ball instead of the 9 as the "". Although the game has existed since the early 1960s, its popularity has risen since the early 2000s as a ...

* 2017

Straight Pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a Cue sports, cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many s as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of Pool (cue sports), pool play ...

* 2017 Russian Pool Championship

* 2017 Atlantic Challenge Cup * 2017 Russian Pool Championship

Nine-ball Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle o ...

* 2016

Albanian Open * 2016 Russian Pool Championship

* 2016 Atlantic Challenge Cup * 2016 Euro Tour Portugal Open * 2016 Russian Pool Championship

* 2016

North Cyprus Open * 2016

* 2016 Russian Pool Championship

* 2015 Atlantic Challenge Cup * 2015 Russian Pool Championship

* 2014 Russian Pool Championship

Notes

References

External links

Kristina Tkatsch
at kozoom.com
Kristina Tkatsch
on the website of

Kristina Tkatsch
on the website of

European Pocket Billiard Federation The European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF) is the European governing body for pocket billiards. EPBF is the European regional affiliate member of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). Events The federation holds the European Championship ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tkach, Kristina 1999 births Sportspeople from Moscow Russian pool players Living people Female pool players