Keighley’s Chris Melling believes he is the best all-round cue player in the world - and would like the chance to prove it.

The 33-year-old, who plays an exhibition against Jimmy White in Bingley on Saturday, June 9, has won the English Pool world title twice (2001 and 2003).

He now travels the world playing nine-ball American pool, helping Europe win the Mosconi Cup over the United States in Las Vegas only last December but he has also been a snooker professional.

He was world-ranked 108 after the 2001-02 season, 114th equal after the 2004-05 campaign and a career-best 85th after 2006-07.

The first player to have been a professional in eight-ball pool, nine-ball pool and snooker, Melling says: “I would love the opportunity to play in a tournament with the likes of Mark Selby, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Jimmy White, Steve Davis and Filipino legend Efren Reyes to see who really is the best all-rounder.

“Maybe it could be done over a weekend because you don’t have to play a massive amount of frames.

“I think I would have a very good chance of winning it. I would be the favourite at English pool, would have a great chance at American pool, although Reyes is superb and it would depend a lot on the break-offs, and have done well recently at snooker - even though I no longer have my own cue.

“I hadn’t played for three years until recently when I was out with a mate in Leeds and made a 130-odd break using a borrowed cue in a working men’s club.

“Mind you I had had a few drinks at the time! But I think I could make 80 or 90 breaks, or maybe even the odd hundred.”

Selby, World Championship snooker runner-up in 2007, won the World Eight-Ball Pool Federation World Championship in 2006, while White met Reyes in the last 32 of the 1999 World Nine-Ball Pool Championships.

O’Sullivan was selected to play on the elite International Pool Tour in 2005-06, while Davis played pool regularly between 1994 and 2007, competing in the Mosconi Cup - a tournament he helped to create - 11 times.

Reyes, now 57 and considered by many to be the greatest pool player ever, won the World Nine-Ball Championship in 1999 and the Eight-Ball version in 2004.

Tickets are still available for the White v Melling challenge match at the newly-refurbished York Street Sports and Social Club.

These are at £50 for corporate clients and £20 for standard tickets and can be obtained from events promoter Mick Speight, the former Bingley snooker professional, on 07414-960956.