[2]: 255 [6] By 1924, three-cushion had become so popular that two giants in other cue sport disciplines agreed to take up the game especially for a challenge match.

The game's decline in the United States began in 1952 when Hoppe, then 51-time billiards champion, announced his retirement.

[2]: 255 [7][8][9] Over time, three-cushion completely supplanted balkline billiards, once the world championship carom game.

[2]: 255  The game's slow resurgence in United States popularity is due in part to the introduction of the Sang Lee International Open tournament in Flushing, New York, in 2005, with first-place prize money up to US$25,000.

[citation needed] In 1968 Raymond Ceulemans improved the record to 26 in a match in the Simonis Cup tournament.

[10] The highest run so far in a World Cup match is 26, set by Torbjorn Blomdahl on 26 May 2023 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

[14][15] The best game at the standard 50 points in a league is six innings (8.333 average) by Eddy Merckx (count:4-9-26-7-0-4) in the German Bundesliga in 2011.

[16] The best such game in a tournament is nine innings (5.555 average) by Torbjörn Blomdahl in 2000, while South Korean and later U.S. national champion Sang Lee scored 50 points in four innings (count: 19-11-9-11, a 12.5 average) in a handicapped game at Sang Lee Billiards in Queens, New York.

[2] The best tournament match average is 5.625 (45 in eight innings over three games; i.e. only five misses), scored by Dick Jaspers in the above-mentioned European Cup finals in Florange, France, in 2008.

[22] The game was featured in the 1959 animated Disney short film Donald in Mathmagic Land, in which Donald Duck attempts to learn the game by mastering the diamond system, which uses the diamond markings on the rails as a guide for calculating where the cue ball will strike based on player aim and cueing technique.