Yesterday was the last day of the qualifying rounds for the 2025 Xi’a Grand Prix … played in Leicester. You all know what I think of that situation… 🙄

Anyway, it is what it is and here is the short report shared by WST:

Vafaei Whitewashed By Jiang

World number 124 Jiang Jun scored a surprise 5-0 victory over Hossein Vafaei in the qualifying round for the Xi’an Grand Prix.

China’s 20-year-old Jiang took five frames in a row with a top break of 72 and he goes through to the final stages in Xi’an next month. Former Shoot Out champion Vafaei has struggled with a neck injury this year and has dropped from a career-high of 15th down to 25th in the Johnstone’s Paint World Rankings. 

Marco Fu, the fastest player on the tour so far this season with an average shot time of just 13.7 seconds, raced to a 5-1 win over Sanderson Lam with top runs of 106, 99 and 71.

Stephen Maguire top scored with 85 in a 5-2 defeat of Bai Yulu, while Barry Hawkins made 121 and 134 in a 5-0 victory over Hatem Yassen. Hong Kong’s Wang Yuchen came from 3-0 down to beat Pang Junxu 5-3.

Well … if Hossein suffers from a lasting neck injury, he deserves credit for showing up, for trying his best and playing the match to a finish. That he lost is no surprise because all players who qualify for the main tour can play at a very high standard.

All the results are available on snooker.org

The most remarkable result registered yesterday, in my opinion, was Wang Yuchen’s win over Pang Junxu and it’s one that really pleases me. As you already know, I met him at an APTC in Yixing in 2012 when he was only 15. At the time he was trying to “juggle” between his dream to become a snooker player and his father’s wish to see him get a university degree. Eventually he managed both which is quite an achievement. He’s a very clever young man. There seems to be some confusion regarding Wang’s “snooker nationality”: it’s been swapping between “China” and “Hong Kong”. He probably has both. His father is from Hong Kong, that’s what he told me back then. But to play in that elite group of youngsters at the time, in mainland China, I suppose he had to be Chinese as well.

Snooker continues in Leicester today with the 2025 NI Open Qualifiers.

There is also snooker currently played in the USA and, of course you will be able to find all results on snooker.org as well.