A cheaper cloth, that is just as good? It may even be better. This evening, I played a match on the Royal Pro cloth, a first for me. In case you have not heard about it: Royal Pro, unlike the Iwan Simonis cloth we have become so used to, does not contain any wool. It is a synthetic fabric, which is cheaper to produce, sell and cover your table with. Its spiritual father is Pavlos Zachariadis from Greece, and his product is taking the billiard world by storm, or so they tell me. My team went over to a room in Oosterhout, Netherlands, owned by the Hermans family who are also distributor of Royal Pro for the Netherlands. Long story short: I went in with some doubts and reservations, walked out a man convinced. Playing conditions were nothing short of superb in Oosterhout. The tables were medium length, very quick, cushions responsive and utterly predictable. There was not a single thing about it I did not like.
