World Snooker Tour and Hong Kong Billiard Sports Control Council (HKBSCC) are pleased to announce the return of the Hong Kong Masters to the WST calendar in October this year.
This prestigious invitation event was last held in 2017 and was a tremendous success. The last edition in 2017 was held in Hong Kong’s Queen Elizabeth Stadium, which was recognised by many players as one of the best venues for a snooker tournament. Neil Robertson beat Ronnie O’Sullivan in the final.
Neil Robertson won the Hong Kong Masters in 2017
This time it will be staged, for the first time, in the Hong Kong Coliseum, the largest indoor stadium in Hong Kong with a maximum capacity of 10,000.
HKBSCC will invite eight top players, including Hong Kong’s snooker icons Marco Fu and Ng On Yee, to compete over four days from 6 to 9 October 2022.
WST Chairman Steve Dawson said: “We are excited to bring this event back to the calendar for the first time in five years and we are thrilled to be working with HKBSCC on what will be a fantastic tournament.
“Many of the world’s top players described the 2017 Hong Kong Masters as one of the best atmospheres they have ever played in, and this is another opportunity for them to experience the support of the local fans.”
HKBSCC Chairman Vincent Law said: “The Hong Kong Masters will be the first major international sport event in Hong Kong since we were hit by the pandemic. There is no better occasion to show to the world that Hong Kong is back for business. We hope the tournament this time will set more records and bring excitement that the public have been longing for. We are thankful to WST for its support to billiard sports in Hong Kong. We hope the players and the people of Hong Kong will have some fun.”
The player line up and ticketing information will be announced by HKBSCC shortly.
Snooker returning to Asia is good news. It will be interesting to see who are the 6 “other” invited players and who will want to make the trip. I’m not sure though that 10000 persons around one table will work … already at the Crucible, with less than a thousand spectators, the table looks minuscule from the rafters.
Ding Junhui, Fan Zhengyi and Mei Xiwen were the members of the victorious Shaanxi team at the CBSA Cup in Xi-an, which concluded on Saturday.
Running from July 5th to 9th at the Xi’an Aerospace International Conference Centre, the CBSA Cup is regarded as one of the most prestigious national events staged in China.
Over the five days, 29 teams from all over China attended, featuring professional World Snooker Tour players, as well as leading amateur players and rookies.
The Shaanxi team, named by Shaanxi Tourism Group, beat Guangdong 4-2 in the final. Zunyi and Beijing shared the third place.
WST congratulates the CBSA on the successful staging of this fantastic event.
Congratulations to the Shaanxi Team!
All three members are or were professionals. I find it a bit funny that Fan Zhengyi is only mentiommed “en passant”, when, of the three, he’s the one who won a professional event most recently… anyway…
Jamie Curtis-Barret won the 2022 English Amateur Championship
The English Snooker Championship is the longest running competition in snooker. It was first help in 1916. There are many prestigious names on that trophy, but not Ronnie’s 😉
Congratulations Jamie!
The Under-18 English Snooker Championship was won by Stan Moody, who defeated Aidan Murphy (7-0 !!!) in the final.
Congratulations Stan!
Mink has joined Victoria’s Snooker Academy …
This can only be a good move for her. First class practice facility, first class support and first class practice opponents!
Ronnie was in Dundee for snooker exhibitions …
Not much transpired so far, maybe Csilla will be able to tell us more.
From what I could find …
… Ronnie insisted to drive the “taxi” himself
… the club and its owners made him feel very welcome
… and one of these two had a 147 yesterday evening
And that’s it (for now).
The report by Csilla is in the comments section. Thank you Csilla!
and here is the 147 as shared by Snooker Legends on Facebook
We were on Saturday – this was an exhibition planned for January, and postponed because of then existing COVID-restrictions: the Sunday-date was added later, but the already purchased tix were valid for Saturday, thus unfortunately we missed the 147, but it was great nevertheless. And thanks for that picture on the water: I saw it on Saturday and tried to convince Ricardo that it is from the river here, but he did not want to believe me.
It was in the Gardyne theatre in Dundee, a very different venue from the snooker club where we saw him in Arbroath in 2019. You can see it on the video too. It was full house, we had very good seats (row E, the first 3 were not sold), so a great view of the table (I just got my new glasses on Friday, great timing LOL), but I don’t know how well it could be seen from higher up, but there was the big screen behind, extra advantage to be able to see the difference between how the position looks on the table and the screen.
The program was the usual: first Virgo with his trick-shots, although he did not do them himself this time, but got volunteers from the audience: maybe he feels too old to do them himself? (That was Ricardo’s assessment anyway.) After that Ronnie played 8 frames against locals, who were quite good according to their self-introduction: playing for various teams and some having high breaks over100, but nothing came out of that here, except one guy made a good break of 35 until he unluckily missed the pack trying to break it and that was the end. Incidentally he was the only one Virgo did not make continuous fun of during his commentary: I really wanted to tell him give the poor people a break and shut up! But I suppose this is part of entertainment, although I personally was quite satisfied just to see Ronnie live playing snooker,
Ronnie was his Ronnie-self all evening: not a single word from him, no hello, great to be here, nothing. He came in, waving like he does at tournaments, selfie with the opponent and down to the table. He tried for 147 immediately, but broke down positionally, had to go for the blue. That man is dead serious and competitive and/or shows respect for the opponent/table/game. Not goofing around, a few exhibition shots at the end of frames and maybe a few pots he would not try in competition (although looking at some of his pots at the Worlds I’m not so sure 😊), but otherwise he really did not look like wanting to lose any frame. Michaela Tabb was the referee, apparently not on Sunday.
The audience really enjoyed it and roared at some great shots and well, there was one horrible break-off when Ronnie did not only hit the blue, but potted it too!!! 🙂 Unfortunately no signing or selfies this time: I expected there would be, but realized that it would have been really overwhelming with a few hundred people that theatre could put up. They sold some memorabilia though, so we ended up buying a really overpriced cup with the 7: it looks really good.
Thank you Csilla. What video though?
The 147 video is circulating on fb: Snooker Legends and of course I got confused what I saw where. 🙂
Neil Robertson won the Hong Kong Masters in 2017
Ding Junhui, Fan Zhengyi and Mei Xiwen were the members of the victorious Shaanxi team at the CBSA Cup in Xi-an, which concluded on Saturday.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Dundee-exhibition
We were on Saturday – this was an exhibition planned for January, and postponed because of then existing COVID-restrictions: the Sunday-date was added later, but the already purchased tix were valid for Saturday, thus unfortunately we missed the 147, but it was great nevertheless. And thanks for that picture on the water: I saw it on Saturday and tried to convince Ricardo that it is from the river here, but he did not want to believe me.
It was in the Gardyne theatre in Dundee, a very different venue from the snooker club where we saw him in Arbroath in 2019. You can see it on the video too. It was full house, we had very good seats (row E, the first 3 were not sold), so a great view of the table (I just got my new glasses on Friday, great timing LOL), but I don’t know how well it could be seen from higher up, but there was the big screen behind, extra advantage to be able to see the difference between how the position looks on the table and the screen.
The program was the usual: first Virgo with his trick-shots, although he did not do them himself this time, but got volunteers from the audience: maybe he feels too old to do them himself? (That was Ricardo’s assessment anyway.) After that Ronnie played 8 frames against locals, who were quite good according to their self-introduction: playing for various teams and some having high breaks over100, but nothing came out of that here, except one guy made a good break of 35 until he unluckily missed the pack trying to break it and that was the end. Incidentally he was the only one Virgo did not make continuous fun of during his commentary: I really wanted to tell him give the poor people a break and shut up! But I suppose this is part of entertainment, although I personally was quite satisfied just to see Ronnie live playing snooker,
Ronnie was his Ronnie-self all evening: not a single word from him, no hello, great to be here, nothing. He came in, waving like he does at tournaments, selfie with the opponent and down to the table. He tried for 147 immediately, but broke down positionally, had to go for the blue. That man is dead serious and competitive and/or shows respect for the opponent/table/game. Not goofing around, a few exhibition shots at the end of frames and maybe a few pots he would not try in competition (although looking at some of his pots at the Worlds I’m not so sure 😊), but otherwise he really did not look like wanting to lose any frame. Michaela Tabb was the referee, apparently not on Sunday.
The audience really enjoyed it and roared at some great shots and well, there was one horrible break-off when Ronnie did not only hit the blue, but potted it too!!! 🙂 Unfortunately no signing or selfies this time: I expected there would be, but realized that it would have been really overwhelming with a few hundred people that theatre could put up. They sold some memorabilia though, so we ended up buying a really overpriced cup with the 7: it looks really good.
Thank you Csilla. What video though?
The 147 video is circulating on fb: Snooker Legends and of course I got confused what I saw where. 🙂
Thank you!