Defending champion Mark Selby eased to victory in Group Four of BetVictor Championship League Snooker Invitational to secure a place in next month’s Winners’ Group.
Selby will join Hossein Vafaei, Si Jiahui, Kyren Wilson and three more players in the Winner’s Group in February when the title and a place in the 2025 Champion of Champions will be at stake.
Stuart Bingham finished top of the group phase with five wins out of six, followed by Selby and Joe O’Connor with four apiece, than Jak Jones with three. In the semi-finals, Selby won a Leicester derby against O’Connor with a top break of 120, while Jones came from 2-1 down to beat Bingham 3-2 with 139 and 113 in the last two frames. Selby then dominated the final, beating Jones 3-0 with breaks of 84, 134 and 80.
Bingham, Jones, O’Connor and Matthew Selt advance to Group Five, where they will join world number one Judd Trump, Neil Robertson and Tom Ford. The action resumes on Monday, 20th January.
Zhao Xintong is now guaranteed to finish top of the WPBSA Q Tour Europe ranking list and has secured a two-year World Snooker Tour (WST) tour card starting from the 2025/26 season.
Following early exits for Dylan Emery (3-4 to Fergal Quinn) and Ryan Thomerson (3-4 to James Cahill) in the sixth Q Tour Europe event in Mons, Belgium, Zhao now cannot be caught in top spot following an incredible campaign.
The 27-year-old from China has lost just a single match in the Q Tour Europe series this season and has picked up a trio titles in Stockholm, Manchester and Vienna. He also made history by compiling the first maximum break in Q Tour history during the event in Sweden, and incredibly followed this up with another 147 in the following event at Club 200 in Manchester.
Zhao remains in contention for a fourth successive title in Mons following victories over Edwin Depoorter (3-0), Olivier Pechenart (3-1) and Hamin Hussain (4-2) to reach the last 32 stage where he will face Asutosh Padhy on Saturday evening.
Upon confirmation of his return to the professional tour, Zhao said: “I am very happy because I have hoped for this day for a long time. I knew it would be very hard to get back on to the tour and I needed to play very well because all the players on Q Tour are really good.”
Zhao added: “I went a long time without playing a competitive match and I have really enjoyed being back. To play on the tour, I need to be winning and gain some confidence. I will do my best to win this title, I am guaranteed to be on the tour next season now but I still want to do the best I can.”
As a result of his success in the amateur game this season, Zhao was invited to take part in the qualifying rounds of the 2024 UK Championship and successfully won four matches to reach the televised stages before losing out to 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy in the last 32.
The former UK Championship and German Masters winner believes he can pick up silverware in the professional ranks once more, saying: “I just want to enjoy the matches but if I play well, I know I can be a champion again on the tour. I believe in myself so lets do it.”
Not everyone is happy to see Zhao back, but I am. He’s served his WPBSA suspension, has certainly worked very hard to come back in this form. He’s a beautiful player and snooker is better with him than without him.
Iulian Boiko has made a maximum break at the Q-Tour event in Mons
Iulian Boiko has compiled only the third maximum break in WPBSA Q Tour history during event six of the Q Tour Europe series at the Delta Moon Snooker Club in Mons, Belgium.
The 19-year-old Ukrainian scored the 147 in the third frame of his last 64 stage match against home nation player Dan Leyssen2 en route to a 4-2 victory. The impressive teenager had also made a break of 134 in frame two of the same match.
The achievement sees Boiko become only the second player in history to make a maximum break on the WPBSA Q Tour after China’s Zhao Xintong, who incredibly scored 147’s in consecutive Q Tour events in Stockholm and Manchester earlier this season.
Q TOUR MAXIMUM BREAKS
Zhao Xintong – Q Tour Europe – Event 3 (Stockholm, Sweden)
Zhao Xintong – Q Tour Europe – Event 4 (Manchester, England)
Iulian Boiko – Q Tour Europe – Event 6 (Mons, Belgium)
O’Sullivan looked extremely frustrated while playing in the Championship League earlier this week, smashing his cue after defeat to Rob Milkins and then withdrawing from that event before pulling out of the Masters, causing concern over his state of mind.
Murphy says no one in the sport has to deal with the pressure that O’Sullivan has been under for over 30 years and wishes him well.
‘Ronnie has been at the top end of the game since bursting on the scene in 1992, and I’ve often criticised his antics on and off the table, but one of the things I’ve always been clear about is that nobody has carried the weight of expectation that he does,’ said the Magician.
‘I had it for a little bit, Mark Selby did, Judd Trump has it for a bit, there are players who have had that weight of public expectation for periods of time, but he has carried it since he turned professional.
‘To achieve what he has achieved while carrying that weight of expectation must take immense strength of character and it can’t be easy to do that all the time. To be under such scrutiny and in the light so much must take a toll.
‘I hope that he’s okay and nothing too seriously wrong with him and we’ll see him back to his best sooner rather than later. …
As usual I have replaced the original links by the “snooker.org” ones that will remain valid over time ↩︎
I have corrected Dan’s name … I should know how to spell it. I’m Belgian too. ↩︎
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
A lot of things are happening at the moment. Jason Francis seems to launching a lawsuit against World Snooker:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/32751980/ronnie-osullivan-company-nst-sues-wst-snooker/
The article claims that even though Ronnie is a shareholder he is not involved in the lawsuit.
I am looking forward to the Masters today, but I definitely will miss Ronnie.