With a combined age of just 20 years, Teddy White and Lucas Earnshaw teamed up and won a match on live television in the 2025 Ultimate Pool Pairs Cup.
Teddy White and Lucas Earnshaw - who have a combined age of just 20 years - teamed up to play in the 2025 Ultimate Pool Pairs Cup last Monday night which was shown live on TNT Sports in the UK, and a host of other countries worldwide.
The unique 8-ball pool competition is one of the Ultimate Pool Group’s most prestigious events, in which many of the world’s top players partner each other in a bid for the title.
As well as stars from the small table, several snooker professionals have also taken part in the past; brothers-in-law Mark Selby and Gareth Potts - who are both former WEPF world 8-ball pool champions - won the tournament in 2022. Kyren Wilson - world snooker champion in 2024 - has also competed in it before.
This year’s edition of the Pairs Cup once again consists of 64 two-player teams, with the event being held on Monday nights across 21 weeks. The opening phase takes place over the first 16 weeks, with each night showcasing a round robin of four pairings where the group winners advance to the last 16 and stage two.
English duo White and Earnshaw were drawn in the opening week of the competition, and in their first match they faced Welsh internationals Andy Williams - who is the captain of his country and a current Ultimate Pool professional player - and Elliot Combe.
With the match score tied at two frames each, there was a thrilling finish to the contest with the 20-minute match-clock about to expire.
After Williams was slightly unfortunate to go in-off, Earnshaw - who is the younger brother of world under-15 blackball pool champion Charlie - cleared the three remaining balls with around 18 seconds left to beat the buzzer and claim a historic 3-2 victory on their debut together.
That win put them joint-top of the group and in their next match they faced father and son duo of Tommy Jones Junior and Senior who were also on two points having defeated defending Pairs Cup champions Josh Kane and Callum Singleton 4-1 in the opening fixture of the night.
After the youngsters lost the opening rack, White won his singles frame to level the scores at 1-1, but the Jones duo proved to be too strong as they went on to register a 4-1 win.
Needing to win their final match to keep their qualification hopes alive, White and Earnshaw narrowly lost to title holders Kane and Singleton - two of the world’s top players - 3-2, and finished third in the table, although they certainly impressed and left their marks on the audience at the Players Pool and Snooker Lounge in Newcastle-under-Lyme and the television viewers at home.
Jones and Jones ended up winning the group with five points (two wins and a draw), and they advance to the last 16 that is set to be held later in the year.
It is not the first time that White - whose father is professional player Liam - has starred on the Ultimate Pool stage. When playing in last year’s EPA County Pool Shootout, a then nine-year-old White produced a stunning break-and-clearance under the lights whilst representing Staffordshire.
Earnshaw also has Ultimate Pool experience and was discovered by the organisation when he played in one of their TikTok competitions last year.
What is, and who are Ultimate Pool?
Founded in 2020, The Ultimate Pool Group are helping thrust UK-style 8-ball pool into the sporting mainstream, and are heavily responsible for the cuesport discipline’s recent boom in popularity.
Having been seen by some as somewhat of an ‘underground’ sport, Ultimate Pool went about professionalising 8-ball pool with a surge of exciting, refreshing ideas and formats to attract new fans and broadcasters, and by creating a structured competitive system consisting of several big events.
As well as live television coverage on Monday nights in the UK which is then shared to 65-plus nations across the globe, Ultimate Pool has fantastic presence on social media with over 500,000 followers of its Facebook page, and a plethora of their videos on TikTok receiving several million views. They also have nearly 300,000 subscribers on YouTube, and an app that covers all their biggest events.
Their Ultimate Pool Series - which runs across several long weekends each year - has gone from being held in a club, to a hotel, to a big sporting arena, with their latest event having been staged at Bolton Wanderers Football Club’s Toughsheet Community Stadium where over 70 tables were in operation.
The Series features events for professionals, amateurs, women, seniors and disabled players. It also runs its ‘Next Gen’ series for juniors that helps nurture potential future stars of the sport.
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