General Snooker Thread

[Lineker]

Stunning maximum.

[JasonM]

Brecel came back unrattled and got 4 centuries on the bounce and is going into the final session with a 5 frame advantage having to win three more to clinch it.

Absolutely phenomenal performance from him, and I am admittedly a bit biased in favour of a player from the continent to not just make it into the final, but be on the cusp of a world championship.

[Chris2K]

Selby has really dragged himself back into this, not sure if Brecel quite knows what to do to stop him at this point.

[JasonM]

8 minutes ago, Chris2K said:

Selby has really dragged himself back into this, not sure if Brecel quite knows what to do to stop him at this point.

Brecel gone over 50 minutes without a single pot, and every long attempt he's tried in the evening session have been off by quite a ways. The occassion is definitely getting to him.

[Bobfoc]

Selby has let Brecel off the hook in this frame. There's a big difference between 16-16 and 17-15.

[Chris2K]

Got there in the end, well done to him.

[Bobfoc]

Brecel didn't win any of his matches by a margin of more than three frames. He certainly knows how to hold his nerve.

[JasonM]

What a time for Brecel to find his groove back and finish the final frame with panache. Definitely a bit lucky from a Selby blinder, but in the end he got there on his own and made it count when it mattered.

Absolutely massive to see a European lift the cup and win the world championship, never thought i'd actually see it happen but here we are. Part of me hopes it will create more interest in the sport going forward, if only in Belgium, because that was a brilliant tournament.

[Bobfoc]

12 minutes ago, JasonM said:

Absolutely massive to see a European lift the cup and win the world championship, never thought i'd actually see it happen but here we are. Part of me hopes it will create more interest in the sport going forward, if only in Belgium, because that was a brilliant tournament.

I hope it will inspire some people over there, but it's far from guaranteed. There really haven't been any other mainland Europeans who have come anywhere near winning big tournaments since maybe Tony Drago, and he never really had the safety game to consistently compete with the best. There were also a couple of good Canadians and South Africans in the early 80s, but nobody really came along after that.

Still, there's a good spread of nations in the professional game now, at least when compared with twenty years ago.

[Lineker]

Lifetime bans for Liang Wenbo and Li Hang for match-fixing.

Eight other players, all from China, have received bans ranging from 20 months to five years and four months from the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).

[Nick Adams]

The World Snooker Tour is holding the qualifying rounds for the World Championship. It's largely pretty basic so far, but there are some people who are only there because they had poor seasons, but who can actually play brilliantly when they're motivated.

Of course, there are others who have chosen to leave competition because they failed to qualify.

Still, I thought baseball was a long game. 10 frames minimum for a match, with weaker players taking up to 30 minutes per frame, is a long watch. No wonder pool just has sequence, 9-Ball, and 8-Ball.

[Michelle Branch]

I'm sure there is a snooker thread, but is there a thread for other cue sports?

[Lineker]

9 hours ago, Michelle Branch said:

I'm sure there is a snooker thread, but is there a thread for other cue sports?

Just use this, I guess?

 

In other, pool-y, news...

Quote

Former Watford striker Troy Deeney is set to feature as a wildcard player at next month's UK Open Pool Championship.

Deeney, 35, was sacked as manager of League Two side Forest Green Rovers in January after just six games in charge.

Speaking of his participation at the World Nineball Tour event in Telford from May 7-12, Deeney said he wanted to help "push the sport forward".

"The aim is to go there and not embarrass myself to be honest," the former Premier League player said.

Deeney, who played at Birmingham City before joining Forest Green as a player-coach in August 2023, told Sky Sports: "I just like pushing the boundaries a little bit, and seeing how it goes.

"You can't just put a few months' worth of genuine training into it and a lot of years of odd playing - sometimes with a beer in hand as well - and expect to beat these guys.

"But I know as soon as I'm involved in anything, my competitive edge will come flowing through. I'll give it a good go."

Birmingham-born Deeney, who joined Watford from Walsall in August 2010, scored 140 goals in 419 games for the Hornets.

He helped them gain promotion to the Premier League in both 2015 and 2021.

His time at Forest Green, his first managerial job, was cut short after he publicly criticised his own team following a defeat.

 

[Bobfoc]

Ronnie O'Sullivan is the latest person to cosy up to the Saudi government, saying that he wants the World Championships to be held there. Any tournament he doesn't win is a good one in my eyes.

[Michelle Branch]

4 hours ago, Bobfoc said:

Ronnie O'Sullivan is the latest person to cosy up to the Saudi government, saying that he wants the World Championships to be held there. Any tournament he doesn't win is a good one in my eyes.

Do you oppose the Championships becoming a touring event? Works great for the Mosconi Cup.

[Bobfoc]

The Crucible is "the" venue for the tournament. The atmosphere is great and there's the sense of tradition and history that goes along with it. Something big would be lost by taking it elsewhere.

[Chris2K]

It's essentially the same as having the Darts World Championship not played at Alexandra Palace or the Lakeside, or even the Masters not being played at Trump National instead of Augusta.

That said, I fully expect the Snooker World Championship to move abroad, the Hearns have been far more active in trying to move tournaments to China in the Middle East for snooker than they have for darts, and already have a track record from their boxing promotion. The atmosphere would be terrible between frames, but that would likely be ignored as it's also a game that's predominantly silent to begin with.

And as we see more and more every year, tradition and history are easily out-weighed by money and more money.

[Bobfoc]

I do think it's a matter of time, especially when you've got idiots like O'Sullivan and Trump pushing for it constantly. The future of sport seems to involve playing in front of a tiny crowd for huge amounts of money.

[Bobfoc]

Neil Robertson has lost in the final qualifying round. It will be the first time he's missed the World Championships in twenty years.

[Chris2K]

Eddie Hearn has now come out and said how snooker "must "embrace" investment from different parts of the globe"  and "Snooker does not need to just have to land in the UK or China", which he may as well have said whilst wearing a thawb and waving a Saudi flag.