Iran’s Amir Sarkhosh, Mohamed Shehab from the United Arab Emirates and Welshman Duane Jones all came through the WPBSA Q Tour Global Play-Offs to earn a place on the World Snooker Tour for the 2024/25 and 2025/26 seasons.
The 2023/24 WPBSA Q Tour season saw the tour go global for the first time by incorporating series’ in the Middle East, Americas and Asia-Pacific region alongside the UK/Europe series which has been held since 2021/22. Cueists from across the globe have been competing all year to earn a coveted spot in the Global Play-Off. The season’s best 24 players came together in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina this week, split into three sections of eight.
Sarkhosh beat Iulian Boiko 10-8 in the final of his section and will turn pro for the first time, joining fellow Iranian cueman Hossein Vafaei on the circuit next season. “I am happy that snooker is growing in the Middle East and I think it will get better day by day. I know it will be difficult on the professional tour but I am really excited by it,” said Sarkhosh, whose top break in the final was 125.
Shehab, who last played on the pro tour in 2007, saw off Yu Kiu Chang 10-8. He said: “I feel brilliant, I came here prepared for a challenge – not only to secure the tour card, but to represent my country and the Middle East. It is the first time we have had the Q Tour in the Middle East and the top two players have qualified – that’s a clear message that there are good players in the region.“
In an all-Welsh derby, Jones came from 9-7 down to edge out teenager Liam Davies 10-9. “I was gutted when I dropped off the tour and I’ve felt like chucking it in a few times, but snooker is in my blood and it always will be,” said the former German Masters semi-finalist.
Meanwhile, the EBSA European Under-18 Championship title went to Bulcsú Révész, beating Vladislav Gradinari 4-0 in the final. Recent WSF Junior champion Révész lost just a single frame in the knockout stages.
Not many would have predicted that the two “Middle East” Q-Tour laureates would qualify for the main tour, nor that the latter stages of the two junior EBSA events – under-16 and under-18 – would be dominated by mainland Europe players. This once again debunks the claims that the UK has the best amateurs, something that has occasionally been presented by some British fans as a justification for the UK centric organisation of the sport. Also at the EBSA event, the two winners so far are mainland Europe lads AND it’d about time that WST/WPBSA make the effort to spell “foreign” names correctly. It isn’t hard. I corrected the spelling in the above report BTW.
The draw for the 2024 Huading Nylon World Open has been updated, to include the four wild card players.
CLICK HERE for the draw and here for the match schedule. Matches involving the wild cards are:
Sanderson Lam v Gong Chenzhi Wang Xinbo v Wang Xinzhong Jordan Brown v Lan Yuhao
Sam Craigie has withdrawn from the event due to injury. His last-64 opponent was Robert Milkins, who now receives a bye to the last 32.
David Gilbert has also pulled out and his last-64 opponent was Fan Zhengyi, who now receives a bye to the last 32.
Ronnie has already landed in China. A short video was shared on weibo, showing him and Victoris Shi arriving in the country.
And the 2024 Women Snooker World Championship is in its final day…
At the time of writing Bai Yulu has already booked her place in the Final, beating Reanne Evans by 5-3 from 0-3 down… Here are the scores (Bai Yulu first): 29-78(30); 33-69(68); 0-88(76); 62-54; 72-31; 77-70(44); 74(38)-14; 71(71)-33(33).
UPDATE
Mink has beaten On Yee by 5-0 with scores being like this: 6-64; 19-54; 61-66(40); 1-64; 30-67 (although it’s shown the other way around in some pages of the WPBSA scores site). This means that Mink strengthened her position as Women number 1. Should Bai Yulu win tomorrow, both of them would be on the main tour next season and I’d love that.
Nutcharut and Bai to Contest World Championship Final
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.
Iulian Boiko is in Sarajevo, competing in the under-21 event. There is a tour card for the winner. He’s in the QFs at the time of writing.
I’m very happy to see that Bai Yulu and Mink will contest the final and would like to see both of them get a tourcard for next season. It is also good to see that the final will be a match of reasonable length. I was also disappointed to see Iulian Boiko lose.
Well, I can resolve the confusion! Nutcharut Wongharuthai beat Ng On Yee 5-0 in their semi-final. I am currently in Dongguan, and saw all the matches from the last 2 days.
After the Q-finals, I had predicted that Reanne Evans and Ng On Yee would most likely contest the final, but somehow things worked out the opposite. Bai Yulu was rather lucky today, and hasn’t played her best in the last two rounds. She looks under a lot of pressure. This whole event has been organised around her, and the watching crowd have been very expectant. The Q-final matches were all extremely one-sided, and it has been clear throughout the tournament that the 4 best players would reach the semi-finals, where the competition would really come to life.
The organisation here is superb, and the venue is high class. It’s probably the best WWS World Championship there has ever been, and a definite step forward for the women’s game. I asked one of the organisers whether it would continue here next year, and he said ‘it depends on the government’, which is quite an interesting claim. The Aircon made it very cold on Friday, but it was fine today. The noise is not as loud as it sounds on the video streams.
I have been staying in Guangzhou, taking the train to Changping (about 45 minutes) followed by an interesting walk to the centre of town (30 minutes) through various markets, where the Dongguan Academy is (hidden in a side street) and the very prominent Changping Gymnasium, where the event was moved presumably after unprecedented demand. There were people holding signs around the area. Today there were about 250 people watching, which must be a record for women’s snooker. If Bai Yulu continues her progress, next year’s crowd could be bigger. This is helped by the weekend, and free tickets.
Tomorrow I have to dash to Yushan (via Shanghai) for the World Open. Hopefully I’ll be there in time for the opening ceremony.
I’m a little disconnected here, so I haven’t seen any footage from the Q Tour finals. The results are a little surprising. We still wait to see Liam Davies clinch a tour card, and the performances of non-British players is quite remarkable. This is nodoubt helped by having the event held outside the UK.
The women’s event looked great and well organised. However, the lack of live scoring detracted heavily in the final stages. To be able to follow what is happening in an event like that, without having to watch the live stream, which was very welcome by the way, is very important in my opinion. I can’t understand why they didn’t seem to be bothered about it.
WPBSA will turn their usual blind eye towards what is crystal clear to the rest of us and continue with their UK bias.
Mink has beaten On Yee so as well as facing Bai Yulu in the final, has earned another 2 years on the main tour.
I don’t feel that there should be a main tour place for the women. I would rather they gained an automatic place on the Q Tour and played for main tour places on a level playing field (or table).
Same goes for all the EBSA and WSF events.
Picking the best of small pools just doesn’t work in my opinion.
The lack of live scoring from the women’s world championship sadly detracted from what was a magnificent looking event. No good being all flashy without the fundamentals being in place. Yes, there was live streaming which was pretty good, but it’s not always easy to be able to watch an event and live scoring would have at least allowed better following.
The EBSA events or the WSF event are not a “small” pool. They have a huge field. The UK/Europe Q-Tour in its current form favours UK players too much with the majority of events played in the UK. Home advantage matters, in more ways than one.
The age related events are pretty small and the way they are organised means that they are limited to who can afford to go. I believe there should be a proper development programme funded by the organisers of each stage. Many players can’t afford to enter events like the WSF etc. All too disjointed and still, in my opinion, small pools.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Adam Duffy and Iulian Boiko are withdrawed too from the World Open.
Meanwhile Ronnie already got medal and trophy before the event even started LOL. 😀
https://weibo.com/2871868031/O5qPuzrq7?refer_flag=1001030103_
https://weibo.com/5718804188/O5rmBE7yo?refer_flag=1001030103_
https://weibo.com/2433988324/O5rC3tlmk?refer_flag=1001030103_
Iulian Boiko is in Sarajevo, competing in the under-21 event. There is a tour card for the winner. He’s in the QFs at the time of writing.
I’m very happy to see that Bai Yulu and Mink will contest the final and would like to see both of them get a tourcard for next season. It is also good to see that the final will be a match of reasonable length. I was also disappointed to see Iulian Boiko lose.
Well, I can resolve the confusion! Nutcharut Wongharuthai beat Ng On Yee 5-0 in their semi-final. I am currently in Dongguan, and saw all the matches from the last 2 days.
After the Q-finals, I had predicted that Reanne Evans and Ng On Yee would most likely contest the final, but somehow things worked out the opposite. Bai Yulu was rather lucky today, and hasn’t played her best in the last two rounds. She looks under a lot of pressure. This whole event has been organised around her, and the watching crowd have been very expectant. The Q-final matches were all extremely one-sided, and it has been clear throughout the tournament that the 4 best players would reach the semi-finals, where the competition would really come to life.
The organisation here is superb, and the venue is high class. It’s probably the best WWS World Championship there has ever been, and a definite step forward for the women’s game. I asked one of the organisers whether it would continue here next year, and he said ‘it depends on the government’, which is quite an interesting claim. The Aircon made it very cold on Friday, but it was fine today. The noise is not as loud as it sounds on the video streams.
I have been staying in Guangzhou, taking the train to Changping (about 45 minutes) followed by an interesting walk to the centre of town (30 minutes) through various markets, where the Dongguan Academy is (hidden in a side street) and the very prominent Changping Gymnasium, where the event was moved presumably after unprecedented demand. There were people holding signs around the area. Today there were about 250 people watching, which must be a record for women’s snooker. If Bai Yulu continues her progress, next year’s crowd could be bigger. This is helped by the weekend, and free tickets.
Tomorrow I have to dash to Yushan (via Shanghai) for the World Open. Hopefully I’ll be there in time for the opening ceremony.
I’m a little disconnected here, so I haven’t seen any footage from the Q Tour finals. The results are a little surprising. We still wait to see Liam Davies clinch a tour card, and the performances of non-British players is quite remarkable. This is nodoubt helped by having the event held outside the UK.
The women’s event looked great and well organised. However, the lack of live scoring detracted heavily in the final stages.
To be able to follow what is happening in an event like that, without having to watch the live stream, which was very welcome by the way, is very important in my opinion.
I can’t understand why they didn’t seem to be bothered about it.
WPBSA will turn their usual blind eye towards what is crystal clear to the rest of us and continue with their UK bias.
Mink has beaten On Yee so as well as facing Bai Yulu in the final, has earned another 2 years on the main tour.
I don’t feel that there should be a main tour place for the women. I would rather they gained an automatic place on the Q Tour and played for main tour places on a level playing field (or table).
Same goes for all the EBSA and WSF events.
Picking the best of small pools just doesn’t work in my opinion.
Sorry Monique, now I’m a bit confused 🤔.
The following result of the semifinal between On Yee and Mink on the WWS score site shows a win for Mink beating On Yee 5:0
Link: https://snookerscores.net/scoreboard/match/04d4f182-73fa-4329-802e-94afc3c143bc/sheet
Btw I like both of the players and would have been happy for each of them reaching the final 😊.
I’m even more confused now Silvry … because this page https://snookerscores.net/tournament-manager/2024-world-womens-snooker-championship/live-scores shows the opposite…
The lack of live scoring from the women’s world championship sadly detracted from what was a magnificent looking event.
No good being all flashy without the fundamentals being in place.
Yes, there was live streaming which was pretty good, but it’s not always easy to be able to watch an event and live scoring would have at least allowed better following.
The EBSA events or the WSF event are not a “small” pool. They have a huge field. The UK/Europe Q-Tour in its current form favours UK players too much with the majority of events played in the UK. Home advantage matters, in more ways than one.
The age related events are pretty small and the way they are organised means that they are limited to who can afford to go.
I believe there should be a proper development programme funded by the organisers of each stage.
Many players can’t afford to enter events like the WSF etc.
All too disjointed and still, in my opinion, small pools.