Sport: The Master Retires

If ever a professional so dominated his field as to deserve the misused term "genius," that man was Billiard Master Willie Hoppe. A touring prodigy at nine, Willie deserted straight rail billiards in his early teens as too simple a game: at 13 he made a consecutive run of 2,000. At 18 he won his first world championship at the more difficult game of 18.1 balkline.* Since then he has consistently held the world's best players at bay. Age has not noticeably withered Willie's wizard touch with a cue. Now a silver-haired 65, he holds his twelfth world three-cushion bilHard title...