The last 2022 Q-School event is underway. This time the early rounds didn’t throw that many surprises. One notable “upset” though was Michael Georgiou’s defeat at the hands of James Silverwood. Michael had previously stated that, should he fail to regain his tour card, this would be his last Q-School. He confirmed his retirement from professional snooker on Facebook yesterday; he clrearly didn’t enjoy the last weeks at all.
Other relatively surprising results are early defeats for Peter Devlin, Harvey Chandler, Ben Hancorn and Leo Fernandez.
Here are the reports by WST:
Davies Underway With Win
Welsh 15-year-old Liam Davies defeated Jack Bradford 4-2 on day one of Q School event three in Sheffield.
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Davies became the youngest ever winner of a World Championship match at Crucible qualifying last month and is now eyeing professional status. He bowed out in the penultimate round in the second event and will be hoping to go two steps further this time around.
Davies crafted breaks of 58, 75 and 81 on his way to the win and now faces Ian Martin in the second round.
Former professional Jamie Curtis-Barrett eased through with a 4-0 defeat of Daniel Walker. He top scored with 62 and now faces a tough test against Billy Castle in round two.
Ukraine’s Sergey Isaenko progressed with a 4-1 defeat of Digivay Kadian, while Chris Totten came through with a 4-2 win over Liam Pullen.
The last four professional tour cards will go to the four semi-finalists in event three, which runs until Thursday.
Boiko Scores Whitewash Win
Ukraine’s Iulian Boiko eased through to round three of Q School event three with a 4-0 win over Gary Miller in Sheffield.
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Boiko was relegated from the circuit following the recent World Championship. He turned professional two years ago when he was runner-up to Ashley Hugill at the 2020 WSF Open. The talented 16-year-old from Kiev showed flashes of his potential during his time on the circuit, but ultimately didn’t do enough to retain his professional status.
Next up for Boiko is a tough assignment against fellow former tour member Billy Castle, who defeated Jamie Curtis-Barrett 4-0 this evening.
Thailand’s Sunny Akani booked his place in the third round with a 4-1 win over Scotland’s Chris Totten. He now faces Callum Beresford, who scored a shock 4-3 win over Peter Devlin.
Norway’s Kurt Maflin beat Jason Wright 4-1 to progress, while Farakh Ajaib defeated Fergal Quinn by the same scoreline.
The last four professional tour cards will go to the four semi-finalists in event three, which runs until Thursday.
Holt Claims Opening Victory
Michael Holt scored a 4-1 win over Latvia’s Rodion Judin in his opening match at Q School event three, which represents his final opportunity to regain a professional tour card for next season.
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Former Shoot Out champion Holt is one of the biggest names competing in this year’s tournament, but didn’t manage to secure one of the eight tour places on offer over the first two events. The Hitman must now attempt to make the semi-finals and earn one of the four remaining spots.
Holt won the opening frame this morning with a century run of 120 and went on to claim three of the following four frames to progress. He now faces a tough test in the next round against former Ruhr Open winner Rory McLeod, who defeated Ukraine’s Sergey Isaenko 4-0 this morning.
Talented 15-year-old Stan Moody scored an impressive 4-1 win over former professional Jamie Wilson. Moody plays John Astley in the next round.
Welshman Lee Walker progressed with a 4-1 win over Robert Read, while his 15-year-old pupil Liam Davies succumbed to a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Ian Martin.
The event runs until Thursday, when the final round will be contested and the identities of the final four qualifiers will be revealed.
Not much, once again about the young Chinese involved. I watched a bit of Gao Yang’s match yesterday and he was making many mistakes including, IMO, in his shot selection. He was clearly under pressure. He did very well to come back from 2-1 down.
snooker.org has now published an “2022 Q-School order of merit“. It’s still provisional, and this year, there will be no tour cards for those dominating it but it will count when it comes to top-up invitations and Q-Tour invitations.
Ben Mertens is currently 10th in that list and the highest “ranked” player who has’nt been a professional at some stage before. Not great really as it once again shows that the whole format is favouring the former pros too much and doesn’t bring much new blood into the sport.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Yes, the standard at Q School usually gets progressively worse as the chances begin to run out and disillusionment sets in. The matches get slower and slower…
The fact that former professionals do well is not so concerning in itself. There are quite a lot of them and some are young players looking to build on an unsuccessful first attempt. What’s not so good is that the high-pressure format favours battling players rather than fluent players. A strategy of making breaks of 30 then playing safe might get through Q School, but won’t be sufficient at professional level.
Yes Lewis, Gao was the one taking the risks. When I said that his shot selection was wrong, it was not in absolute terms – which wouldn’t make sense anyway – it was in the context of the match, given the way his opponent was approaching it. His opponent was skillful enough but wasn’t creating many opportunities for himself, he was feeding on Gao’s mistakes.