Kyren Wilson emerged the winner of the 2025 invitational CLS Group 3 yesterday evening.

Here is the report shared by WST:

WILSON BEATS JONES IN GROUP THREE FINAL

In a repeat of last year’s Crucible final, Kyren Wilson came from 2-1 down to beat Jak Jones 3-2 to win Group Three of BetVictor Championship League Snooker Invitational. 

Results / Tables and fixtures¹

Wilson is enjoying a fine season as reigning World Champion having already landed two more titles at the Xi’an Grand Prix and BetVictor Northern Ireland Open, and he’ll have the chance for further silverware in February’s Winners’ Group, joining Hossein Vafaei, Si Jiahui and four others.

He finished second in the group phase today with four wins from five, behind Mark Selby who reeled off five victories in a row, with Ali Carter third and Jones fourth. In the semi-finals, Wilson edged out Carter 3-2 with a break of 77 in the decider while Jones impressed in a 3-1 defeat of Selby.

World number two Wilson took the first frame of the final then Jones hit back with runs of 70 and 115 to lead 2-1. Frame four went to Wilson with a run of 69, and he had first chance in the decider but made just 14 before running out of position and playing a loose safety. But Jones missed a tricky red to a centre pocket and that proved crucial as Wilson’s break of 55 secured the result.

Group Four gets underway on Friday with Barry Hawkins, Stuart Bingham and Jackson Page joining the action.

Congratulations Kyren Wilson.

Ronnie had two matches scheduled yesterday. He played the first one, lost by 3-2 to Robert Milkins. During that match his frustration boiled over. He savagely whacked his cue on the rail of the table and David Hendon reflected that he might well have been damaged it because he hit it really hard. Whether this was the case or not, I’m not sure, but Ronnie clearly stopped trying at that point, finished the match, and then withdrew from the event. It’s worth mentioning that Ronnie immediately apologised to both the referee, John Pellew and his opponent for his outburst, something the commentators appreciated.

It’s not the first time Ronnie withdraws from the invitational CLS, an event he essentially treats as good paid practice. and I’m sure he would have with drawn at the end of the day, no matter what² but I can’t remember him doing it in the middle of a day with another match to play. So maybe, Hendon was right and Ronnie didn’t want to risk further possible damage to the cue. He got crucified for it on social media, but by doing it rigth away he actually made sure that Chris Wakelin would get the option to play in the next group although Wakelin apparently didn’t take it.

What’s next for Ronnie?

This season has, so far been a very strange one. Ronnie hasn’t played badly in general, but mistakes have crept into his game and he’s suffered several premature exits from tournaments. He’s clearly not happy and struggling with the whole situation.

Let me try to explain I say that Ronnie has not actually played badly. Here are the scores of the matches he played in the CLS:

Ronnie has played 24 frames in five matches over the last two days. All but one, the match against Kyren Wilson, the eventual group winner, went to a deciding frame. He won 10 of those frames, and made 10 breaks over 50 in the process, including three centuries, a 98 and a 90. That’s heavy scoring. So the scoring isn’t the issue. The issue yesterday was too many odd unexpected, frustrating mistakes … and at one time, after a positional mistake, Steven Hallworth in commentary stated that there was no way Ronnie could have played a certain shot “that way”, that his tip was almost certainly not how/what it should have been for the cue ball reacting the way it had. If Steven was right, then Ronnie certainly took the wise decision, giving himself more time to fix the issue before the 2025 Masters

1. I have replaced WST links with the ones on snooker.org because the latter will remain valid over time ↩︎
2. The reason I write that is because he starts his Masters defence on Sunday and I’m certain that he wouldn’t have wanted to stay for two more long tiring days in Leicester, especially if he wanted to fit a new tip on his cue as he was clearly not happy with the one he used at the CLS. ↩︎