Yesterday was the first day at this year’s ranking Championship League Snooker that saw both Groups in action topped by the highest ranked player in the group.
Here is the report shared by WST:
Wilson Through – But Misses 147 Chance
Kyren Wilson marched into the second stage of the BetVictor Championship League in Leicester on Thursday despite falling agonisingly short of making his fifth maximum break in competition.
Wilson, the world number eight, came into the event with low expectations after injuring his leg on a recent stag-do in Portugal, but hit the ground running as a break of 111 helped him secure a quickfire 3-0 victory over amateur Josh Mulholland.
The 31 year-old five-time ranking event winner was poised to wrap up a 3-0 win against Louis Heathcote with a 147 but finished with an awkward angle on the pink and, trying to force it in to obtain position on the black, missed the pot.
The break therefore stalled at 134 but Wilson, who made a maximum in last season’s World Championship, was left requiring just one frame from his final match against Andy Hicks to win Group 5.
He clinched it with his fourth century of the day, 100, and completed victory at 3-1. “First tournament of the season, I felt quite rusty coming in but I’m delighted with how I played today. I only had three or four days practice before this so I’m chuffed,” Wilson said.
“I’m really looking forward to the season. China is back on the calendar and we’re going to be really busy. It’s exciting.”
Heathcote, who bounced back from tour relegation by coming through Q School earlier this month, had beaten Hicks 3-1 and later defeated Mulholland 3-0 to finish in second place.
Thepchaiya Un Nooh dominated Group 29, making successive clearances of 132 and 140 to beat Austria’s Florian Nuessle 3-0 in his opening match.
Un Nooh, the 2019 Shootout champion, sat out a break of 103 from Victor Sarkis – the first century the Brazilian has made on the World Snooker Tour – but compiled a run of 90 in the next and added two closer frames to win 3-1 and take control of the group. The Thai then eased to a 3-0 victory over Elliot Slessor to complete a clean sweep.
“I’m happy with my performance today. I haven’t practised much lately. I went back to Thailand for a holiday. I just wanted to enjoy it today and treat it as practice,” he said.
Nuessle enjoyed 3-0 victories over Slessor and Sarkis to finish the group in second position.
Friday’s main table action will see former world champions Mark Williams and Ken Doherty renewing their rivalry in a group which also includes Welshman Dylan Emery and Polish amateur Daniel Holoyda.
Yesterday also saw the new live scores system coming to live… it wasn’t exactly convincing. At the start of the day, it was showing the live scores the wrong way, with points scored by player A showing under Player B’s name and vice-versa. That was corrected. For the time being it shows no player mug shot. That’s a minor detail actually. More annoying is the fact that it doesn’t show what’s left available on the table, so it’s hard to know if a player actually needs snooker. I hope that gets fixed because that IS important. So far I have seen nothing “new” as compared to the former system.
Regarding the 2023 Macau Masters …
WST has made it clear that this is an exhibition event, it’s not one of their events, and it’s not sanctioned.
Never mind… here are two more videos that appeared on weibo
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Both Kyren and Un-Nooh did well yesterday – so I’m also chuffed. But darn, missing that max on the pink… Cues have been made to suffer on far lesser occasions.
After a look at the results (cuetracker), I find:
Heathcote did quite well, finishing second with two wins and being run over by Kyren – just two points for the former. Still, it would appear Heathcote’s efforts to improve both his fitness and his game pay dividends.
There is little solace for Sarkis, except for his first professional century. Upon closer inspection, he, surprisingly, played the closest match in the group against Un-Nooh, 186 points overall against Un-Nooh’s 208. Maybe there is some hope in there for the sole Brazilian on the tour. He certainly has his work cut out for him to avoid relegation.
Also of note I find Nüßle, also finishing second, albeit with just a lone break of 66 to his name. Still, he won two matches, just Un-Nooh’s breaks of 132 and 140 proved insurmountable. Maybe the young man can crack open that door, and soon.
On some other stuff: The name of the recent Africa champion, Mostafa Dorgham, has disappeared from group 17, and there is no replacement yet. Hopefully it’s “just” visa issues, not a harbinger of his not showing up at all.
Finally, I see they placed Ryan Day in second place in group 10, ahead of Jiang Jun, even though the latter had the higher break. That’s probably on account of Day’s higher overall (points) score. Who thought, “the match between the players in question will determine the rankings”, was so lacking in clarity?
Oh, and… the less said about the fabulous new scoring thing, the better.