Melling, Chris

Few players in the history of cue sports have demonstrated the versatility of England’s Chris Melling. Known throughout the game as “The Magician,” Melling has competed at an elite level in English eight-ball, American pool, Chinese eight-ball and professional snooker, building a career distinguished by world championships, Mosconi Cup triumphs, spectacular shot-making and remarkable longevity. Ultimate Pool has described him as one of the rare players to have competed professionally across multiple cue-sport disciplines, and at 47 he remains an active professional.

Christopher Melling was born on January 27, 1979, in Keighley, West Yorkshire, England. His fascination with cue sports began almost immediately. In our Legends of the Cue conversation, Chris recalled playing on a tiny pool table at about three years old before graduating to the local pub table. At nine, after winning a small doubles competition with a neighbor, that neighbor persuaded Chris’s parents to let him take the youngster to a local snooker club. Melling soon became consumed by the game. By age twelve he had compiled his first century break in snooker; by fourteen, he had made his first 147.

Those achievements were built on extraordinary commitment. Melling remembers practicing after school until the club closed and spending virtually entire weekends at the table. His working-class parents made enormous sacrifices to support him, paying table time and expenses so their only child could pursue his passion. Pool and snooker also provided refuge during a childhood in which Chris was frequently bullied. The thousands of hours spent alone at the table helped produce the speed, imagination and pattern recognition that would become signatures of his game.

As a junior, Melling quickly emerged as one of England’s brightest prospects, winning major junior titles before joining the professional English eight-ball circuit. Among his early traveling and practice partners were future champions Darren Appleton and Mick Hill, relationships that would become part of one of the strongest generations in British pool. His original interview outline traces his progression from junior champion into the professional ranks and ultimately alongside Hill, Appleton, Gareth Potts and Jason Twist among the dominant English eight-ball players of the era.

Melling’s first defining breakthrough came in 2001, when, at 22, he captured the WEPF World Eightball Championship, defeating two-time champion Rob McKenna 11–10 in a dramatic final. Two years later he became a two-time world champion, defeating Jason Twist 11–7 in the 2003 final and rising to world number one.

Yet Melling was never content to master only one game. In 2001 he reached the last 16 of the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in Cardiff, defeating six-time world snooker champion Steve Davis along the way. At the same time, he pursued professional snooker. Records at snooker.org list his first professional season as 2000, and his career repeatedly moved between snooker’s professional and secondary circuits.

The financial realities of professional cue sports forced difficult choices. Melling loved snooker and believed he had the ability to reach its upper ranks, but pool offered tournament income, exhibitions and sponsorship opportunities. He nevertheless enjoyed significant snooker successes, including an International Open Series victory, and later defeated accomplished professionals such as Matthew Stevens, Joe Perry and Luca Brecel. In 2014 he returned to Q School, defeating Daniel Wells, Chen Zhe and Duane Jones to earn a two-year professional tour card.

Meanwhile, his American-pool game was developing rapidly. In October 2010, Melling won the Dynamic Portugal Open, defeating Spain’s Carlos Cabello Ariza 9–4 for his first EuroTour title.

Then came one of the most emotional periods of his life. While Melling was emerging as an international nine-ball star, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. Chris recalled wanting to withdraw from competition and remain home, but his parents urged him to continue pursuing the career they had spent years supporting. At the 2011 China Open in Shanghai, Melling produced what he described at the time as the best pool he had ever played, defeating Chinese Taipei’s Hsu Kai Lun 11–3 in the final at the Shanghai Pudong Yuanshen Stadium and collecting $40,000. He returned home, and his mother died only weeks later.

Later that year, Melling made his Mosconi Cup debut for Europe at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. His first singles assignment was hardly gentle: Shane Van Boening. Melling won 6–5 as Europe went on to retain the Cup.
A year later, at the famously raucous York Hall in Bethnal Green, London, Melling helped Europe defeat the United States 11–9 and was named 2012 Mosconi Cup MVP. One of the enduring images of that event was his extraordinary kick shot against Brandon Shuff, followed by a pressure clearance that sent the York Hall crowd—and his European teammates—into celebration.

After another period devoted to professional snooker, Melling returned to pool and immediately reminded the sport of his extraordinary range. At the 2017 Derby City Classic at Horseshoe Southern Indiana, he won the Straight Pool Challenge, defeating Mika Immonen 125–89 in the final. That same year came perhaps the most famous rack of his career: a World Pool Series clearance against Immonen featuring an ingenious combination-carom, a severe swerve or masse shot and a breathtaking four-rail bank. The video became one of pool’s most celebrated highlight clips.

In 2018, Melling won the Derby City Classic 9-Ball Championship, surviving a dramatic hill-hill final against Canada’s John Morra 9–8 at Horseshoe Southern Indiana. Later that year in Yushan, China, he became the only international male player to reach the final of the Chinese Pool World Championship, ultimately losing a heartbreaking 21–19 match to Zheng Yubo. He rebounded that August by winning the World Pool Series 8-Ball Classic Championship at Club IDM in Bucharest, defeating Jayson Shaw in the final.

Melling’s later career has only strengthened his reputation for longevity. He became the inaugural Ultimate Pool Champions League winner in 2021, defeating Michael Hill, and later won the first Champion of Champions Shootout. In 2022 he added Ultimate Pool Professional Series Event Two.

At age 45, “The Magician” enjoyed another remarkable run in 2024, winning the Ultimate Pool USA Louisiana Open, the Ultimate Pool Masters, and the Ultimate Pool USA Kansas City Open, where Joe Prince finished runner-up.

Behind the titles is what makes Chris Melling such a compelling figure in cue-sports history: an almost instinctive ability to see patterns, escape seemingly impossible positions and adapt from one discipline to another. But Melling rejects the idea that talent alone created his career. In our interview, his message to younger players was simple: he had been learning his trade since childhood, and no amount of natural talent substitutes for putting in the hours.

Perhaps Melling summarized his journey best when Allison Fisher asked how he would like to be remembered. His answer was not about trophies. He hoped people would remember a normal kid from a normal, working-class town who “lived his dream,” became one of the best in the world, traveled the globe and made a life playing pool.

For more than three decades, Chris Melling has done exactly that—and along the way, “The Magician” has made some of the most difficult things in cue sports look almost impossibly easy.