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Before the Qatar World Cup 10-Ball 2025 tournament, Jonas Magpantay was just another Filipino pool player looking for his big break. He certainly got it.
In a year that has produced several feel-good and historic sports stories involving Filipino athletes, what pool player Jonas Magpantay accomplished in Doha last Sunday is perhaps the most heartwarming.
The 2025 accomplishments of Alex Eala, Carlos Yulo and Miguel Tabuena all made us swell with Pinoy pride and should rightly be celebrated. They’re world-class athletes in high-profile sports. But with all due respect to these three icons, Jonas Magpantay’s journey last month would probably make the best sports movie.
Everyone simply loves an underdog story. If we had to pick sides, ten times out of ten we root for the underdog. It’s why films like Rocky and Rudy resonate to this day. Over the course of 13 days last month, Magpantay was the ultimate underdog, someone who wasn’t even supposed to be playing in the main draw of the Qatar World Cup 10-Ball 2025.
Four times Jonas Magpantay joined the qualifiers, and four times he came up short. He also fell short in the race for an extra qualifier slot based on a points system. But just when it appeared that all his options were off the table, fate intervened. A player withdrew at the last minute, and his slot went to Magpantay. It wasn’t meant to be, until it was.
‘Never heard of him’
There are scores of uber-talented billiards players in the Philippines who can hang with the best players in the world, but most are sadly anonymous and never get to showcase their talent on the international stage. This much was evident in the recent Philippines Open when a complete unknown named Eric Navarette shocked heavyweights Duong Quoc Hoang, Jeff De Luna and Anton Raga.
Jonas Magpantay isn’t exactly in the same category as Navarette – he’s already a familiar face in the local pool scene – but his name hardly rang a bell in Doha. Even he knew it.
“First time I joined here in Qatar,” he said during a post-tournament interview after he had won it all. “Nobody knows me.”
He arrived in Doha with zero fanfare, just one of over a hundred hopefuls trying their luck in the Stage 1 qualifiers. While he had to claw his way through Stage 1, his more popular countrymen – AJ Manas, Johann Chua and Carlo Biado to name a few – were already seeded into Stage 2 of the competition.
And even after Magpantay snuck into the main draw, he remained an afterthought. This was, after all, a high-quality tournament, with many of the world’s top cue artists in action and vying for the $100,000 that would go to the winner. Surely no one would look pay attention to this unknown Filipino who only made it this far because someone withdrew.
Magpantay quietly went about his business in the main draw, leaving all the media attention to the others. The pivotal moment came in the round of 32, when he stunned the reigning world 9 ball champion Biado – his first-ever win over The Black Tiger.
The magnitude of his 11-8 victory over the Philippines’ no. 1 player was not lost on Magpantay.
“I mean, I beat Carlo,” he said incredulously afterwards. “Even myself, I couldn’t believe I could beat him.”
Yet even after dispatching Biado, the rest of the field were still largely clueless about him. One after another, they soon found out the hard way who he was.
Former world 9 ball champion Niels Feijen of the Netherlands, who fell to Magpantay in the quarterfinals, summed it up best on Facebook after their match: “never seen him, shoots the lights out.”American Tyler Styer replied with his own Jonas Magpantay story: “I played Magpantay in Manila about 10 years ago. I had never seen him or heard of him either. He broke and ran 7 to start the match 😆 Incredible player.”
Next to fall in the semifinals was recent Manila visitor Moritz Neuhausen of Germany, who was incredibly gracious in defeat: “I fell short to the eventual winner Jonas Magpantay in the semi-finals. Congrats Pare 🏆”
By the time Magpantay reached the final against Poland’s Szymon Kural, a former world junior champion, his confidence was already sky-high. He jumped to a 5-0 lead and cruised to a 13-9 victory.
“He was playing great,” Kural said. “He was cleaning everything, every rack.”
There’s a popular Filipino saying for what Jonas Magpantay did in Doha: Para sa kanya talaga.
‘Silent Killer’ no more
The prizemoney Jonas Magpantay took home – around P5.8 million in local currency – is bigger than all of his previous winnings combined. It’s certainly well-deserved, and hopefully the beginning of more financial blessings to come.
But more than just the money – and perhaps even more important – Magpantay earned the respect and admiration of his peers, who showered him with tributed and accolades on social media.
For Biado, Magpantay’s win was a birthday wish that was answered:
“Lord God Ang bilis mo naman binigay ang birthday wish ko na sana Filipino ang mag champion sa Qatar.
Mabuhay ka!!! Isa kang dakila.
Congratulations sayo brother 💪💪
JONAS MAGPANTAY a.k.a the Silent Killer”
Chua was happy that Magpantay is finally getting his due:
“Masaya kaming lahat na dumating narin yung araw na napatunayan mo ang galing mo sa buong mundo. Sana sa panalo mong to mas maraming pang sumunod sayo at mainspire. Maraming salamat sa karangalan.”
Recent Philippines Open winner David Alcaide also offered his congratulations:
“Congrats amigo Jonas Magpantay 🇵🇭
Qatar open Champion 🏆”
They may now need to retire his nickname “The Silent Killer”, because after his Doha triumph Magpantay can no longer quietly take everyone by surprise.
Would make a great name for a movie, though.
Banner images from Qatar Billiard Sports Federation Facebook page