The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is delighted to share that the ‘Introduction To Snooker’ coaching sessions in support of Parkinson’s UK have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from those taking part.
The sessions, which began in February and will continue until the end of May, engage with local Parkinson’s UK groups to offer free two-hour sessions hosted by WPBSA coaches offering basic-level, fun snooker coaching, as well as recreational group play and the opportunity to socialise with fellow group members.
Additional sessions with the WPSBA’s Head of Coaching and Training Development Manager Chris Lovell at Preston’s Elite Snooker Club were recently announced and one person taking part in the session described it as “pitched at a great level which is accessible for all and great fun.”
Further feedback from a recent session at the Portslade Sports Centre in Brighton included:
“Fantastic social experience”
“Helped me feel better after feeling low in mood earlier today”
“Helped with my physical movements”
“Helped me with my coordination”
“Holding the cue helped momentarily with my tremor”.
There is still time to take part and a full list of upcoming session’s can be found below. Please note that some dates have changed from those initially announced.
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Liam Davies defeated Antoni Kowalski 5-3 in the final of the EBSA European Under-21 Championship in Bosnia & Herzegovina to earn a two-year World Snooker Tour card.
The success in Sarajevo means that the 17-year old will compete as a professional on the main tour for the first time in his career from the 2024/25 season.
He will also play in the upcoming Cazoo World Championship qualifying rounds as a result of this victory – an event where in 2022 he set the record as the youngest player ever to win a match.
Davies had come agonisingly close to securing professional status just a few days earlier in the WPBSA Q Tour Global play-offs, held alongside the EBSA European Championships, having led fellow Welshman Duane Jones 9-7 before losing the contest in a deciding frame.
The teenager showed his fighting spirit to quickly move on from the disappointment and charge through the field to earn a coveted two-year World Snooker Tour card.
Having qualified from the group phase comfortably, Davies then overcame the newly-crowned EBSA European Under-16 champion Vladislav Gradinari 4-1 in the last 32.
Further victories against Thijs Pauwels and Andrejs Pripjoks then set up a semi-final meeting with Latvian teenager Artemijs Zizins.
A break of 100 from Davies in the second frame restored parity after Zizins had taken the opener, and the Welshman looked firmly in the ascendacy as he moved one away from victory at 3-1.
The Latvian cueist refused to go down without a fight, however, and fired in a stunning break of 128 to force a decider before Davies finally managed to get over the line and set up a title match against Poland’s Kowalski.
The first six frames of the final were shared between the two players in the best-of-nine frame contest but the class of the Welsh teenager showed as he held himself together to secure the title with a 5-3 victory.
“For the last few balls I was just trying to concentrate on hitting the white, my arm was shaking that much,” admitted Davies after the final. “It means so much to me to finally get on the tour, having missed a few chances over the last two years. I think I am ready for it now. I have had so much support from my mum, dad and brother so I’m happy just to give something back to them.”
The Under-16 and Under-18 events have already reached their conclusion in Sarajevo, with 15-year-old Gradinari from Moldova lifting the Under-16 crown while the recent WSF Junior champion Bulcsu Revesz added to his trophy cabinet with a dominant victory in the Under-18 Championship.
The main European Championship event runs until Saturday, with another tour card for the winner.
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Peter Gilchrist defeated Dhruv Sitwala 1101-757 to win the Walter Lindrum Open at the Mounties Club in Mount Pritchard, Australia.
Victory for the Singaporean cueiest secured his first World Billiards ranking title since the Sydney Open back in November and means that he and David Causier, absent from the event, continue to dominate the tour having split the last nine ranking crowns between them.
A total of 40 players from six nations competed in the event, named in honour of Australian multiple world champion Walter Lindrum, and they were initially split into eight groups of five to narrow the field down to the last sixteen.
As most will have anticipated, top seed Gilchrist stormed through his group with a clean sweep of victories before defeating Australia’s Todd Hayward by a score of 835-140 to book his place in the quarter-finals stage.
A high break of 189 helped the reigning world champion to then overcome Adwin Teh of Malaysia to set up a semi-final meeting with Steve Mifsud.
Mifsud, a former snooker professional, gave Gilchrist his toughest contest thus far but two breaks of over 100 were still not enough to stop the Singaporean as he eventually ran out a 826-593 victor.
Gilchrist’s opponent in the title match was India’s Sitwala, who was competing in a second consecutive ranking event final after finishing runner-up to Causier in the Austrian Open earlier in the month.
The final was a high-quality affair with the players compiling eleven breaks over 50 between them in the four-hour contest. Gilchrist ultimately proved too strong, however, to secure the victory by a margin of 344 and lift the prestigious title.
The next stop on the World Billiards tour is a double-header in Carlow, Ireland, where both the Irish Open and World Matchplay will take place between 12th and 19th April.
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People with complex disabilities will be able to meaningfully play snooker, rounders and badminton for the first time ever, thanks to a charity reinventing the traditional sports.
Sense, the national disability charity, has created three new versions of sports – sensory snooker, sensory rounders and sensory badminton – after consulting with disabled people they support on the activities they most wanted to play but were unable to take part in.
Working closely with the sports’ three governing bodies, the charity which supports people with complex disabilities, created simpler versions of each game. Sense first identified the key skills required for the traditional sport, then designed activities to help people achieve the same goals in a more accessible way.
Ideas were honed over an intensive six-month period, including recreating a snooker table on the floor with a felt mat or potting the balls by hand; throwing objects overarm and underarm to mirror badminton shots; using a small bat to hit a ball balanced on a stand in rounders. Each sensory sport can be adjusted to suit the skills and abilities of individual players, so everyone can get involved.
Now Sense will invest £60,000 over the next three years to launch sessions for hundreds of disabled people across England, alongside Badminton England, Rounders England and The World Professional Billiards & Snooker Association, with the first groups swinging into action this April.
It is hoped the three new sensory sports will appeal to a broad range of players, encouraging them to enjoy being active and socialising. Recent Sense research found over half (53%) of people with complex disabilities felt lonely*, compared to 25% of the general public**.
The groundbreaking scheme is being funded by a £2.2million grant that Sense was awarded by Sport England in April 2023 to tackle “inactivity” among people with complex disabilities. The aim is to encourage 5,000 more people into sport by 2027.
Alissa Ayling, Head of Sense Active, said:
“The three all-new sensory sports we’ve developed offer a nice range of activities for players to choose from. Badminton is a more traditional sport, snooker is a sociable activity that can typically be more difficult for people with complex disabilities to understand and play, while rounders can be combined with a picnic on a fun day out.
“We hope the new versions of these sports will encourage hundreds more people with complex disabilities to become more physically active and less lonely. At Sense, we want to ensure that everyone has the chance to engage meaningfully in any sport – and this is a huge leap in that direction.”
Bob Hill, Club and Facilities Manager at World Professional Billiards & Snooker Association (WPBSA) said:
“The experience of playing snooker is multi-sensory, uplifting and good for physical, mental and social health. We feel strongly that those benefits should be available to everyone and we are committed to making adaptations wherever necessary to create the right conditions for each player to take part, have a challenge and gain a sense of achievement.
“Working with Sense allows our sport to tap into the expertise of dedicated and creative people who understand how to innovate to make a sport appeal to people with complex disabilities. We hope many people Sense supports will develop a passion for snooker through this new initiative.”
Sian Barnett, Workforce Manager at Rounders England, said:
“Ensuring that rounders is a truly inclusive sport means that we must be flexible and provide new adaptations so everyone can take part.
“It’s fantastic to be working with an organisation such as Sense, who will provide expertise and knowledge so we can create new resources to allow individuals with complex disabilities to enjoy our sport. Together, we will support coaches and volunteers to deliver these exciting new sessions.”
“Badminton England is committed to making our sport the most inclusive and accessible sport in England.
“Our partnership with Sense to develop Sensory Badminton will allow more disabled people to get involved in our sport. Working collaboratively, we will upskill our workforce to deliver inclusively through education and training to create welcoming and accessible environments for people with complex disabilities.
“Our sport is for everyone, so we are excited to see people with complex disabilities enjoy badminton!”
Media enquiries:
For more information, please get in touch with the Sense media team on [email protected] or call 0203 833 0611.
Please contact us if you would like to come along and cover a session when the new sensory sports launch in April.
References:
*Results gathered by combined online polling of 1,000 people with complex disabilities (conducted between 13 March-20 March 2023) and a survey of 234 people with complex disabilities promoted through Sense’s channels (conducted between 14 March-11 April 2023).
**Figures on loneliness for the general public are from ONS’s Opinions and Lifestyles survey in April 2023.
About Sense:
Sense is a national disability charity that supports people living with complex disabilities, including those who are deafblind, to communicate and experience the world. Sense supports children, young people and adults in their home and in the community, in their education and transition to adulthood and through its holidays, arts, sports and wellbeing programmes. In addition to practical support to families, Sense also offers information advice, short breaks and family events, and campaigns for the rights of people with complex disabilities to take part in life. For more information, please visit http://www.sense.org.uk.
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Mink Nutcharut will meet Bai Yulu in the final of the 2024 World Women’s Snooker Championship after the pair won their semi-final matches on Saturday at the Changping Gymnasium, Dongguan, China.
World number one Nutcharut will contest the title match for the third time in her career and will be looking to lift the Mandy Fisher Trophy for the second time after she stormed to a 5-0 whitewash of Ng On Yee this evening.
The 2022 winner is yet to drop a frame in this year’s event and claimed a surprisingly one-sided encounter against three-time winner Ng to also guarantee that she will remain world number one following the conclusion of this year’s event.
With Nutcharut having comfortably eased into a 2-0 lead, the crucial frame would prove to be the third as with Ng ahead and favourite to reduce her arrears, a classy break of 40 turned the tide in her favour as she took the frame on the black to move further clear. Ng continued to fight, but Nutcharut proved strong and would maintain her perfect record in the tournament.
Earlier in the day, China’s Bai Yulu completed a successful comeback from 3-0 down to defeat England’s Reanne Evans 5-3 for the second successive year in the World Championship semi-finals.
It was 12-time champion Evans who flew out of the traps with breaks of 30, 68 and 76 to lead 3-0, before Bai claimed a crucial fourth ahead of the mid-session interval to gain a foothold in the contest.
The decisive frame would ultimately prove to be the sixth, however, as with Evans having potted a respotted black to seemingly take a 4-2 lead, she could only watch on as the cueball dropped into the middle pocket and the scores were level at 3-3.
From this point it was Bai who would not be stopped and added breaks of 38 and 71 to clinch a dramatic victory and secure her place in the final for the second successive year. Having lost out to Thailand’s Baipat Siripaporn in 2023, the 20-year-old will be looking to go one step further and claim the title and a place on the World Snooker Tour for the first time in her career.
The best of 11 frames final will begin at 12pm CST, with the pair set to clash for the third time this season with Bai having won 3-2 in the quarter-finals of the UK Championship and Mink having triumphed 4-3 in the Albanian Open semi-finals last month.
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The top three ranked players in the world and Chinese sensation Bai Yulu are set to contest the semi-finals of the World Women’s Snooker Championship on Saturday following the conclusion of the quarter-finals in Dongguan Changping.
With the group stages and early knockout rounds contested during the first four days, it was quarter-final time on Friday with the matches played across two sessions with last four places on the line at the Changping Gymnasium.
The first to secure their place in Saturday’s semi-finals would be record 12-time champion Reanne Evans, who overpowered compatriot Mary Talbot in just short of 90 minutes. Breaks of 89, 66 and 35 were enough to do the damage, with Talbot’s best chance coming in the third frame which she led early on, before Evans would ultimately deny her.
Evans is now set to compete in a record-extending 19th World Championship semi-final and remains on course to lift the Mandy Fisher Trophy for the first time since 2019 in Thailand.
She will next meet home favourite Bai Yulu in a repeat of their 2023 semi-final clash, after the 20-year-old withstood a stern test from Katrina Wan of Hong Kong China earlier today.
Although Bai was never headed in the match, Wan clinched two frames on the final black to remain in contention but would ultimately fall short as her opponent cliched the match with a break of 67 in the final frame.
The world under-21 champion – who is now guaranteed to climb into the world’s top 10 ranked players for the first time after this week – will be hoping to repeat her triumph against Evans at the same stage of the event a year ago to book her place in the title match once again.
In the bottom half of the draw, three-time world champion Ng On Yee defeated Anupama Ramachandran 4-1 to return to the semi-finals for the first time since she last won the event in 2018.
The Hong Kong China star top scored with runs of 78, 53, 39 and 30 to reach the penultimate round for the seventh time in her career overall and maintain her hopes of reclaiming the title and a place on the World Snooker Tour for next season.
Standing in her way will be Thailand’s Mink Nutcharut, after the 2022 winner saw off China’s Han Fang 4-0 in a deceptively close contest. There was in fact little to choose between the pair in the opening two frames, before Nutcharut eased to victory with runs of 39 and 30.
Mink is through to the semi-finals for a fourth consecutive time and it promises to be a intriguing contest with an opponent whom she has previously met on three occasions already this season, with the Thai player currently leading the head to head 2-1.
The action continues on Saturday with Evans v Bai to be played from 12pm CST, followed by Ng v Nutcharut not before 4pm.
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The 2024 World Women’s Snooker Championship is underway at the Changping Gymnasium in Dongguan, Changping as the world’s best female players contest the Mandy Fisher Trophy and a place on the professional World Snooker Tour.
The Under-21 and Seniors side competitions have been played down to the finals (to take place Thursday), alongside the opening group matches of the main tournament.
There will also be full live coverage from Table 1 throughout the week, available to watch as follows (subject to change):
How to Watch – China
Live coverage is set to be available via Huya, TikTok and WeChat streaming platforms in China.
How to Watch – International
Live coverage is set to be available via:
This live coverage is freely available and does not require any registration. Please be vigilant with regards to spam links purporting to be from WWS social media.
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Igor Figueiredo defeated Noel Rodrigues Moreira 5-1 in the final of the first Q Tour Americas event of the 2024/25 season in Rio de Janeiro.
The event marked a milestone for the Q Tour as it held it’s first event in South America in Brazil’s second-largest city.
A total of 37 South American cueists embarked on the event, which is the first to count towards the new season of Q Tour Americas events. They were split into eight groups, with both finalists as well as former professional Itaro Santos storming through this phase with a clean sweep of victories.
Santos fell to defeat in the first knockout, losing 3-1 to Gabriel Callas Andrade, but back-to-back whitewash victories saw fellow former professional Figueiredo comfortably book his place in the semi-finals – where he defeated Fabio Anderson Luersen 4-1 to reach the title match.
There he would meet fellow Brazilian Moreira, who had come through a hard-fought quarter-final contest against Claudio Menechini in a deciding frame before securing a much more comfortable win in the semi-final by beating Andrade without dropping a frame.
The experience of the 46-year-old Figueiredo, who has featured on the World Snooker Tour on numerous occasions since 2010, showed in the final as he lost just a single frame in storming to a dominant 5-1 victory and securing the first Q Tour crown of the 2024/25 season as a result.
The Global Play-Off for the 2023/24 Q Tour season gets underway on Wednesday in Bosnia & Herzegovina, with the Americas series represented by Canadian Vito Puopolo and American Hasanain Khalid Alsultani. Read the preview.
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The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) and World Snooker Tour are pleased to confirm the qualification criteria for the 16 amateur players who have secured their places at the 2024 Cazoo World Snooker Championship in Sheffield in April.
The qualifying rounds will take place at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield from 8-17 April to determine who will join the world’s elite top 16 ranked players at the Crucible Theatre.
Joining all professionals ranked outside the top 16, following the 2024 Johnstone’s Paint Tour Championship, and top-ups from the 2023 Q School Order of Merit will be 16 leading amateur players who have earned their place at the event courtesy of their achievements at recognised international events across the season.
These include our recent champions at the World Snooker Federation Championship in Albania, the winner of the upcoming World Women’s Snooker Championship to be staged in China next week, and the WPBSA Q Tour Global, expanded for this season.
Jason Ferguson, WPBSA Chairman said: “We are excited to be able to announce another formidable line-up of WPBSA qualifiers who will join the field for this year’s professional World Snooker Championship in Sheffield.”
“Last year we saw fantastic wins for our qualifiers including Liam Davies, Stan Moody, Iulian Boiko and many more, and I have no doubt that this year’s players will also make their mark on our most recognisable tournament.”
“Amateur snooker continues to go from strength to strength as our recognised WPBSA Group pathways around the world continue to mature and deliver elite talent to the World Snooker Tour. Only last month we witnessed fantastic performances from Hong Kong China’s Ka Wai Cheung and Hungary’s Bulcsú Révész at the WSF Championship in Albania to earn their Tour places for the first time, while Michael Holt has also secured his return after two years away after winning the UK/Europe WPBSA Q Tour.”
“The WPBSA’s vision, is to inspire and reward. Through the development of global pathways, snooker is now a sport where an athlete can go from amateur status to world champion and global sports star in a matter of months. The opportunities are there, the only criteria are achievement.”
“I would like to wish our 16 players every success in Sheffield as they stand just four wins away from a place at the iconic Crucible Theatre in April!”
Oliver Sykes – 2024 WSF Junior Championship Semi-Finalist
Hamza Ilyas – 2024 WSF Junior Championship Semi-Finalist
TBC – 2024 EBSA Under-18 European Championship Winner
TBC – 2024 EBSA Under-21 European Championship Winner
TBC – Q Tour UK/Europe Ranking List (subject to Playoff Result)
All players selected will appear subject to acceptance of their place and any travel restrictions in place. Any replacement players for these 16 places will be selected from a reserve list to include performances at World Snooker Federation, Q Tour and recognised regional events.
Any current professional players who do not enter the tournament will be replaced from the 2023 Q School Order of Merit.
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David Causier continued his impressive start to the year by defeating Dhruv Sitwala 719-246 to lift the 2024 Austrian Open title at the BLZ National Training Academy in Vienna.
The 50-year-old Englishman was utterly dominant in the opening round of play, which saw 35 cueists from eight nations divided into groups, as he stormed through this phase with a remarkable aggregate points score of 3,145-226 across four matches, including a notable 932-23 win against Canada’s Fraser Durham in a one-hour contest.
Four breaks over 100 saw Causier comfortably sweep aside Chris Taylor in the last 16, before a more closely-fought quarter-final contest against Jonathan Marwood was eventually won by a scoreline of 613-351.
In the last four, a stunning run of 706 points helped the multiple world champion book his place in the final by a winning margin of over 1,000 points against fellow countryman Darren Clark.
There, he would meet former World Championship runner-up Sitwala.
The Indian had topped his group with a clean sweep of victories before defeating Ian Whiting and Kenny Campbell by comfortable margins to reach the semi-finals, where he would face Northern Ireland’s Christian Kirk.
Breaks of 247 and 151 helped the Indian player on his way to a comfortable victory by 500 points to set up a final meeting with Causier, but Sitwala proved no match in the title contest as the Englishman stormed to a 719-246 win to secure his second ranking title of the year.
The next World Billiards event is the Walter Lindrum Open, which takes place between 13-16 March at the Mounties Club in New South Wales in Australia. Learn more about World Billiards.
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