Yesterday was the first day of action of the 2025/26 season. The ranking edition of the Championship League snooker is not the most enthralling event, it’s a long hard slog that “lasts” for over three weeks, but, as I wrote yesterday it has its merits. Notably it allows us to watch most rookies in action.
The official site for the event is here. Unfortunately, it’s not properly updated and results when available are not always “reliable”. Therefore, if you look for results, you better go to snooker.org.
Two first round groups were played yesterday, Group 15 and Group 26.
Maguire Fires Trio Of Wins
Stephen Maguire made the perfect start to the BetVictor Championship League ranking event with a hat-trick of wins on the opening day to win Group 15, while tour rookie Yao Pengcheng earned a narrow victory in Group 26 in Leicester.
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Maguire and Yao both go through to the second phase which starts on July 18th, when 32 players will be battling for places in the third and final stage.
Six-time ranking event winner Maguire opened with a 3-1 win over James Cahill, firing breaks of 99, 119 and 59. The Glaswegian went on to beat Liam Graham 3-0, and rounded off his day with a 3-0 success against Michael Holt, compiling runs of 74, 58 and 50.
Group 26 was much closer and came down to the final ball of the day. China’s 28-year-old Yao, playing on the pro circuit for the first time having graduated from the CBSA Tour, opened with a 2-2 draw against Lyu Haotian then beat Jamie Jones 3-1, before drawing his last match 2-2 with Zhao Hanyang to finish with a total of five points.
Lyu beat Zhao 3-1 in his second match, which meant he needed only a draw against Jones in his last fixture, having made a higher top break than Yao, which would decide top spot if they were tied on points. From 2-0 down, Lyu made a 95 in frame three and then led 64-33 in the fourth, only for Jones to clear from the last red and snatch the frame on the final black to win 3-1. That left both Lyu and Jones on four points, one behind Yao.
The action continues on Tuesday with Shaun Murphy the star name in Group 3, while Matthew Selt is top seed in Group 22.
Group 15 offered nothing enthralling. Maguire dominated it from start to finish. None of the players involved is a rookie. James Cahill played in this as amateur but he actually turned pro in 2013… his performance was very poor which is just as well1.
Group 26 was far more interesting. The group was extremely close and competitive: none of the players won more than one match and none of the players lost more than one match… The group featured three Chinese players, including two rookies: 28 years old Yao Pengcheng and 25 years old Zhao Hanyang. Yao won the group with two draws and a win. He was the only one who didn’t lose a match. Zhao came last and was the only one in the group who didn’t win a match. I will certainly keep an eye on Yao in the coming months.
- Every time Cahill wins something we are reminded that he beat Ronnie at the Crucible. Yes, he did, but if you watched that match, you will know that Ronnie was really unwell when he played it, he felt, and looked, awful. ↩︎
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
I know it’s a bit of a thing I go on about, but why do you not consider the first round matches of the Wuhan Open and the British Open to be included in “action of the 2025/26 season”?
They are of course, you are 100% right … I think it’s a psychological thing, something in my own brain… You know that I disagree with those qualifiers held weeks, even months, before the “actual” tournament is played at the proper venue, with fans present to support the players. It shouldn’t be that way. It’s not fair to the players who deserve to be seen and supported, and it only favours the Brits and more particularly the English if the goal is to spare the players costs and travel. Those rounds are part of the tournament, of course they are, but it doesn’t feel that way, not to me anyway. I hope this makes sense?