Pia Filler Wins the 2026 Poison Saigon Women’s 9-Ball Open

Pia Filler closed out the 2026 Poison Saigon Women’s 9-Ball Open on September 25 at Phu Tho Indoor Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and the organizers did not undersell it. Their own recap called her run through the field “confident, composed, relentless,” three words that describe exactly the kind of pool a WPA Rank 4 player is supposed to bring to a $90,000 women’s stop. For a shop that sells the exact cue line the tournament is named after, a result like this is the good kind of coincidence.

The Poison Saigon Women’s 9-Ball Open is one of the marquee women’s stops on the Predator Pro Billiard Series calendar in Vietnam, and this year’s edition drew a 64 player field playing races to four through the early rounds before the format tightened into a single elimination shootout for the closing sessions. That structure rewards players who can win short, low margin matches without giving anything away, which is a fair summary of how Filler has built her career since turning professional in 2020.

Who Just Won This

Pia Filler, born Pia Blaeser in Stolberg, Germany, is a 9-ball specialist who has spent the last several seasons climbing toward the top of the WPA women’s rankings, where she currently sits at number four in the world. She is also part of the Predator Cues professional team, which makes her win at a Poison branded event a tidy bit of family business inside one manufacturer’s roster. Poison is Predator’s companion cue line, built as its own carbon fiber shaft platform and packaged into brighter colorways and a lower price point aimed at players who want a modern low deflection feel without the flagship Predator invoice.

Filler is also known outside the scoresheet for being married to Joshua Filler, the 2018 WPA World Nine-ball Champion, and the two are frequently described as the only couple who play professional pool together at this level. That storyline gets plenty of attention, but it is worth separating from the actual pool. A Rank 4 finish at a $90,000 international stop happens because of shot selection, safety play, and break control repeated over dozens of racks, not because of who else is on the roster.

What the Poison Line Actually Offers

Quarter King Billiards carries the full Poison catalog, and the lineup splits cleanly into two jobs. The Poison Candy and Poison Maelith are the playing cues, both priced at 449 dollars and both built around a 12.4mm carbon fiber shaft, a wrapless handle, and a soft multi-layered tip designed to hold up under the kind of firm, spinny hits that 9-ball position play demands. The difference between the two is almost entirely cosmetic. Candy leans into pastel two tone finishes, while Maelith keeps things darker and more understated, and both are available in several color combinations so a shopper can match a cue to their own taste rather than settling for whatever is in stock.

The break and jump side of the lineup is a separate pair of cues built for a different job entirely. The Poison VX Break runs 379 dollars and carries a 13mm phenolic tip instead of the softer tip found on the playing cues, because a break cue’s entire purpose is transferring energy into the rack, not shot precision. The Poison VX Jump/Break sits at 399 dollars and doubles as both a hard break cue and a jump cue, which is a genuinely useful combination for a player who does not want to carry three separate sticks in one case.

Tip and Joint Details Worth Knowing

The tip choice between the two Poison families is not an accident. The Candy and Maelith playing cues each carry a 12.4mm multi-layered soft tip built to grip the cue ball a little longer through contact, which is what lets a player load up spin for position without the ball skidding off the tip early. A break cue does the opposite job on purpose. The VX Break and VX Jump/Break both use a 13mm phenolic tip, which is hard and dense so it transfers as much of the swing’s energy into the rack as possible instead of absorbing it, and it is why you never want to use a playing cue’s soft tip for repeated hard breaks. The wrap tells the same story from a different angle. Candy and Maelith are built wrapless to keep overall weight down and the balance point out toward the joint, while the VX Break and VX Jump/Break add a sport wrap for a firmer grip on the exact shots where a player is swinging hardest and can least afford the cue twisting in their hand.

Every model in the lineup uses a radial pin joint, which is a simple, durable connection rather than the more elaborate quick release systems found on some higher end cues. It is a practical choice for a break and jump cue especially, since that joint takes repeated hard impact over a session and a simpler design gives you less to go wrong. None of the four cards below ship with a second interchangeable shaft, so a player who wants both a soft playing tip and a hard break tip on hand should plan to buy a playing cue and a break cue separately, the way the Poison lineup is actually built to be sold.

Featured Poison Products

Why a Pro Win Should Change How You Shop

It is easy to assume that a cue built to a touring professional’s standard has to cost well over a thousand dollars, and for some brands that assumption holds. Poison is a useful counterexample. Filler competes on Predator’s professional roster, and the same carbon fiber shaft category that has taken over the top of the men’s and women’s tours is exactly what sits inside the 449 dollar Candy and Maelith models in our Poison Cues category. Low deflection carbon shafts matter most on cut shots that require side spin, because a stiffer, lighter carbon shaft tends to hold its line better than a traditional solid maple shaft under the same hit. That is a real, useful advantage for a league player trying to tighten up position play, not just marketing language borrowed from the pro tour.

The practical lesson from a result like this is that the gap between a touring professional’s equipment and a well chosen mid tier cue has closed considerably over the last several years. A player upgrading from an entry level house cue to a Poison Candy is not buying a novelty item with a pro’s name loosely attached to it. They are buying the same shaft engineering the pros use, in a lighter package built for a broader range of grip and stroke styles. If a Poison cue is the difference between a professional closing out a $90,000 international final and an amateur still fighting deflection on a simple cut shot, it is worth taking seriously as an actual upgrade rather than a collectible.

Break Cues Deserve the Same Attention

Most shoppers spend all their research time on the playing cue and treat the break cue as an afterthought, which is backwards given how much a bad break costs a player over a full session. The Poison VX Break and VX Jump/Break exist specifically because a dedicated break cue lets a player swing hard without risking damage to the shaft they use for every other shot. If you are shopping cues for the first time, browse our full pool cues selection and pair a playing cue with a break cue from the start rather than adding one later once the softer tip on your good cue starts showing wear from break shots it was never designed to take.

The women’s side of professional pool keeps producing results like this one that reward technical, patient play over pure power, and Filler’s run through a 64 player field in Ho Chi Minh City is a good reminder of what actually separates the top of the rankings from everyone else. It is shot selection under pressure, not equipment alone, but the equipment has to be good enough to get out of the player’s way. The Poison line is built to do exactly that at a price most club players can justify.

With the World Nine-ball season heading toward the Mosconi Cup in late November, expect more storylines like this one out of the Predator and Poison rosters before the year is done. For now, a $90,000 women’s title in Vietnam is a good excuse to take a closer look at the cue that carried it.