As you probably know the Pink Ribbon is a pro–am snooker tournament that was initially held at the South West Snooker Academy, later renamed the Capital Venue in Gloucester, England.
The first edition was held in 2010. The tournament raises funds for breast cancer charities and has the players all wear pink shirts to show their support. It was created by Paul Mount who had lost his beloved sister, Kay Suzanne to the disease. It was played at the SWSA for ten years. I went to it every year from 2011 to 2019, taking pictures, a lot of them must still be around somewhere on Facebook, and of course on this blog from 2015 until 2018. Ronnie won it in 2015, the only year he participated. It was revived last season and is now played at the Landywood Snooker Club.
It all started last Friday with the “Flyer Event“, won by Riley Powell who beat Peter Devlin in the final.
The “Top Half” amateur event was played on Saturday. Actually this was the “top half” of the main event, up to and included the “last 64” round as the professionals were seeded in the last 32 of the “main event”.
Amateurs entering the Pink Ribbon are granted two bites of the cherry if they so wish. Indeed they have the possibility to play in both halves. 117 amateurs entered the amateur events!
The “main event”, the professional round, was played yesterday. Not all pros won their opening match … some amateurs showed how strong they are! Indeed one of them, Craig Steadman reached the final!
But, eventually, it was a professional, Chris Wakelin who won the event, beating Craig Steadman by 5-3.
Igor Figueriedo Does the Double at 2025 Pan American Snooker Championships
Igor Figueiredo defeated Fabio Anderson Luerson 5-2 to win the 2025 Pan American Open Snooker Championship and earn a two-year World Snooker Tour (WST) tour card.
The continental success means the Brazilian will be nominated for a fourth spell among the professional ranks having first joined the Tour in 2010.
Figueiredo was the dominant force at the Aryan Snooker Club in Sacramento, California as he won both the Open and Seniors Championship titles to earn a two-year WST tour card and qualification for the 2026 World Seniors Snooker Championship – a title he won at the iconic Crucible Theatre last year.
The 47-year-old began the event, which is organised by the Pan American Billiards & Snooker Association (PABSA), with a clean sweep of whitewash victories over fellow countryman Ricardo Bouwman Filho and American cueists Sam McGrath and Pravin Patel.
He dropped just two further frames en route to the semi-finals as he overcame Saif Ibrahim (3-0), Zia Sheik (4-1) and Jason Williams (4-1).
It was an impressive week for Brazilian snooker as the semi-final line-ups for both the Seniors and Open Championships featured all four players from the South American nation.
Three of these – Figueiredo, Luersen and Nelson Rodrigues Morreira – competed in the semi-finals of both events while they were joined by former WST professional Victor Sarkis in the Open competition.
It was Sarkis that faced Figueiredo in the last four but it was the senior man that was in dominant form as he completed yet another whitewash win to move within one victory of the title.
Luersen was his opponent in the title match after he completed a 4-2 defeat of Morreira as he looked to add to the Pan American Seniors Snooker Championship title that he had won 12 months ago.
Figueiredo proved to be too strong once again, however, as he rounded off an unforgettable week by completing a 5-2 victory to secure the title and a WST tour card.
Wether Igor will actually take his tour card remains to be seen though. He didn’t “finish” his last spell on tour and went back to Brazil before his tour card “expired”, explaining that this life abroad was too hard for him and his family. This is understandable. Brazil is too far away for making it possible for Brazilian players to return home just to spend a week-end or indeed any short period of time with their loved ones. The trip is costly and very tiring because the huge time difference. He might however decide to play in the World and Seniors World Championships, as these are “one-offs” in the season and, of course, very special.
I really do hope that he will be able to play in a few events though as he’s very entertaining and (almost) always smiling.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) has today announced the 2025/26 WPBSA Q Tour Global, which includes a new format and increased money for the Q Tour Europe series.
The Q Tour Global is an established series of events which provides an elite pathway for talented snooker players around the world to earn their place on the World Snooker Tour.
In its second full season, Q Tour Global continued to see records broken with 711 players from 54 countries completing 1542 matches across four continents.
WPBSA Q Tour Europe
This season’s Q Tour Europe will once again comprise seven events, with five to be held in mainland Europe for the first time, and sees significant changes to the format, ranking system and prize money following player feedback.
Prize money more than doubled from the 2024/25 season to £30,000 per event
New seeding structure
Best-of-seven frame matches from the last 128 stage onwards
New points-based ranking system
Regular seeding cut-off dates introduced to make the seedings per event more up to date and relative to the current seasons results
The circuit will benefit from increased prize money investment with £30,000 to be contested at each of the events – more than double the prize fund from the past season.
Following player feedback, there has also been an important change to the tournament seeding structure, which will now see 64 players seeded through to the last 128 stage. Each tournament will be played under a flat draw, with the remaining players drawn at random.
All matches from the last 128 stage onwards will now be played over the best of seven frames and each event will now be played over four days.
A new points-based ranking system will replace the previously used prize money system and points will be on offer in all rounds of each event. There will also be regular seeding cut-off dates to ensure the seedings reflect the current seasons results.
As in previous seasons, the top ranked player at the end of the campaign will earn a place on the World Snooker Tour. The next 16-ranked players (to include each event champion) will qualify for the season-end Q Tour Global Playoff.
The Dates
The provisional dates for this season’s Q Tour Europe are:
WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson said: “We are delighted to announce the new, improved WPBSA Q Tour Europe series for the 2025/26 season. We have listened to the players and consulted with the WPBSA Players Board and we believe these changes are a great start to building for the future not just in Europe but across all the Q Tour Global events.”
“As we move forward, we plan to make further improvements so that WPBSA can establish a truly global secondary tour for our sport. These changes are only the beginning!”
Event Entry
Entry for all seven Q Tour Europe events is now open via WPBSA SnookerScores. Please view each tournament for confirmation of each entry deadline.
We aim to accommodate all players who wish to enter; however, we do reserve the right to limit entries for each qualifier or to extend events subject to the number of tables available at the club and time available.
Q Tour Global
WPBSA Q Tour Global will continue to incorporate regional Q Tour series’ staged around the world as part of the continued international expansion of Q Tour.
The Q Tour Global will once again continue to include series in the Middle East, Americas and Asia-Pacific regions, alongside the CBSA China Tour.
As part of the WPBSA’s commitment to the international growth of our sport, the leading players from these Regional Q Tour events will qualify to compete at the Q Tour Global Playoff, alongside players from Q Tour Europe.
Players competing in Q Tour events outside of Europe, must be resident for a minimum six months to be eligible to play in these events.
This, in my views is great news as five of the seven events are played outside the UK. This is how it should be in the main tour as well, qualifiers included, if snooker really has ambition to be a global sport. It did however trigger negative reaction from British amateurs on social media, complaining about the costs and travels. They were “outraged” when I told them that they have been “privileged” for far too long, that this is, finally, how it should be. To this, of course, they responded that they haven’t be privileged … until I explained how the current structure of the main tour basically forces every non British player to live as expat in the UK, away from their family, which is certainly taxing mentally and emotionally, or to travel back and forth all the time, which is tiring and costly, how communication with the gouverning body is done in English, which for non-UK/Irish players is a foreign language…
I’m sure that I didn’t convince those who feel entitled … but my post was liked by a non British player and the father of another non British player, a young and quite successful one too. The said father left this comment: “It’s about time. Welcome to the world of non UK players 😀”. Exactly that!
Click below for the Q School 2025 Order of Merit. During the 2025/2026 season, should the number of entries in any World Snooker Tour event fall below the required number of entrants, subject to wildcards and commercial agreements, the highest ranked players from the Q School Order of Merit will be used to top up to the required number of entrants. The list was calculated by awarding one point for every frame won. All players who received a bye into Round Two were awarded four points for round one.
The Asian Q-Schools are not included. You will tell me that an Asian “top-up” is unlikely to travel to the UK to play in qualifiers. It would be costly, and would involve a lot of administrative hassle as well. But then again “qualifiers” for Asian events, if any , should be played just before the said events and in locations close to the events’ main venue, and, than “Asian” top ups would make sense.
The 21-year-old from China, who was taking part in a third consecutive World Women’s Snooker Championship final, becomes only the seventh player to lift the Mandy Fisher Trophy on multiple occasions and is the first to defend her title since Ng On Yee achieved the feat in 2018.
The two pre-tournament top seeds met in a repeat of last year’s final in a best-of-11 frame title match contest that was watched by a large crowd at the Changping Gymnasium.
The first two frames of the final were shared between the two cueists, who were each aiming to lift the most prestigious title on the World Women’s Snooker Tour for the second time in their careers.
Mink, the 2022 champion who was competing in her fourth final, managed to pull ahead as she secured a 4-2 advantage with a top break of 54.
Local favourite Bai refused to go down without a fight, however, and rallied with back-to-back frames to restore parity, before going ahead for the first time in the match by taking frame nine with a contribution of 61 to move one away from victory at 5-4.
What ultimately turned out to be the final frame of the match was one that was full of drama as it came down to the last few balls and both players spurned opportunities to win it.
There were gasps from the crowd as Bai missed the ball altogether when attempting a thin pink across the length of the table for victory, only for Mink to go in-off after potting it and looking likely to force a dramatic decider.
After taking a second to compose herself, the Chinese player fired home the pink from distance to complete a momentous victory.
Quality wise, it wasn’t a great match but we shouldn’t be too surprised. Both players wanted it badly and they were certainly feeling very tense. The match was showed on YouTube and at one point there were over 47500 persons watching it (me included 😉). There IS an interest for the women’s game, clearly.
Lewis was in the arena and wrote on social media that, to his estimations, about 700 fans were watching at the venue. Not bad!
It was quite the day, yesterday on the green baize … so many things happened!
2025 EBSA Championships in Antalya
The 2025 EBSA Championships in Antalya came to a conclusion yesterday. Liam Highfield won the main event. Two of those events were “carrying” a professional tour car for the winner: the under-21 event, won by Iulian Boiko last week and the main event won by Liam Highfield yesterday. The story of the championships though was very much Michal Szubarczyk, an extraordinary young talent.
Michal is only 14, he was born on 12 January 2011. At the tender age of 12 he won the Polish snooker championship. Earlier this month he won both the under-16 and the under-18 EBSA championships. Yesterday he played Liam Highfield in the final of the “main” EBSA event. He didn’t play well in that match, he was beaten by 5-0. Maybe the occasion got at him, maybe he was tired … after all he had played in all four EBSA events. He won the first two, made it to the final in the main event, played 26 matches over the last two weeks and won 24 of them. No mean feat, especially at just 14 years of age! The good news for Michal though is that, because Liam had already secured his tour card for the next two seasons via the Q-Tour, the losing finalist, Michal is now offered that card. The news was shared by WBSA before the final:
Szubarczyk, 14, To Be Nominated For Tour Card
Fourteen-year-old Michał Szubarczyk will be nominated for a two-year World Snooker Tour (WST) tour card after reaching the final of the 2025 EBSA European Championships in Antalya, Türkiye.
Should he accept the nomination, then Poland’s Szubarczyk will make history by becoming the youngest ever professional snooker player.
Organised by the European Billiards & Snooker Association, the 2025 European Championships in Antalya feature Under-16, Under-18, Under-21 and Main tournaments with the winners of the Under-21 and Main events each earning two-year tour cards.
Having already won both the Under-16 and Under-18 events in impressive fashion, Szubarczyk has reached a third final of the Championships by dropping just two frames in knockout stage victories over Maksim Kostov, Daan Leyssen, Chris Peplow and Nicolas Mortreux before stunning former professional Harvey Chandler 4-3 in the semi-finals.
He will face England’s Liam Highfield in the title match later today (22 March) after he overcame Dylan Emery in a deciding frame.
The 34-year-old has continued his fine form in Antalya which earlier saw him secure a two-year WST tour card via the WPBSA Q Tour Global Play-Offs. Therefore, Szubarczyk has now guaranteed himself a nomination to the professional ranks as a result of reaching the European Championship final.
Congratulations to Liam and Michal!
Today, the 2025 Players Championship Final will be played in Telford. The World Number One, Judd Trump, will face the reigning World Champion, Kyren Wilson over a possible 19 frames. It can’t get better than this, can it? Those two have been the star competitors this season.
Yesterday Judd Trump beat John Higgins by 6-4 to book his place in the final (report shared by WST).
Trump Beats Higgins To Make Telford Final
Judd Trump extended his ranking event win streak over John Higgins to 12 consecutive matches, prevailing 6-4 in the semi-finals of the Sportsbet.io Players Championship in Telford.
Trump’s winning run over Higgins includes the 2019 World Championship final and extends back to a quarter-final meeting at the 2018 China Championship. The Englishman now leads their head-to-head standings 19-14.
Victory this evening for the Ace in the Pack sets up a mouth-watering meeting with World Champion and world number two Kyren Wilson in tomorrow’s final. They will be battling it out over the best of 19 frames for a top prize of £150,000.
The pair have been the two standout performers of the season. They’ve already met in two finals, with Wilson emerging victorious at the Xi’an Grand Prix and the BetVictor Northern Ireland Open. However, the overall head-to-head is 13-12 to Trump.
Trump has enjoyed a tremendous campaign, having already racked up £1,375,600 in prize money. The 30-time ranking event winner has picked up titles at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters and the UK Championship, as well as the invitational Shanghai Masters.
Trump set the tone in the opening frame of the evening with a superb 130 to move 1-0 up. Further runs of 126 and 88 helped him to claim three of the next five frames to go 4-2 up.
At that point Higgins stepped up with two on the bounce to restore parity at 4-4. The Scot made the first significant move in the ninth, but crucially missed a red to the top left on 41. Trump hammered home a crucial break of 61 to punish and go 5-4 ahead.
The last frame of the evening was won with contributions of 53 and 23, which put Trump in the final.
“I had four or five years where he (Kyren Wilson) didn’t beat me before this season. I can see the confidence when he walks around the table. His body language has been different since winning the World Championship,” said 35-year-old Trump.
“For me it is difficult because I’m playing at my level, I’m not full of confidence. If I win the World Championship or something like that I would take the game to that kind of level. He’s in a purple patch, but it’s not going to last forever. It makes for an exciting rivalry for snooker.
“I feel that at the start of my career it was the other way around (against John Higgins). He was making incredible clearances to beat me. It is nice to turn it around. I’m obviously confident to beat him. It is probably in the back of his head that he hasn’t beaten me for a while, but I still have to go out there and do it. I need to play near my best every time.”
And last but not least … WST has published the list of players who have entered the World Championship.
2025 World Championship Entrants Confirmed
The World Championship entry deadline has now passed and WST is delighted to now announce the full list of entrants for the sport’s showcase event.
The final stages take place at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield from April 19th to May 5th, where the top 16 in the world rankings are pitted against 16 players that have come through a nerve shredding qualifying process.
…
The qualifiers will be staged from April 7th to 16th, at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. The competitors will be battling it out for places at the Theatre of Dreams, as well as vital ranking points in the quest for tour survival.
The full list of players is below. Please note that the players are not necessarily in order, with the seeding cut off set for the conclusion of the Sportsbet.io Tour Championship.
WST Tour Player Entrants
Kyren Wilson
Judd Trump
Mark Selby
Ronnie O’Sullivan
Mark Williams
Luca Brecel
John Higgins
Mark Allen
Ding Junhui
Shaun Murphy
Neil Robertson
Zhang Anda
Barry Hawkins
Si Jiahui
Ali Carter
Xiao Guodong
Gary Wilson
Jak Jones
Tom Ford
Stuart Bingham
Chris Wakelin
Wu Yize
David Gilbert
Hossein Vafaei
Jack Lisowski
Pang Junxu
Stephen Maguire
Elliot Slessor
Noppon Saengkham
Ryan Day
Joe O’Connor
Zhou Yuelong
Jackson Page
Jimmy Robertson
Yuan Sijun
Matthew Selt
Lyu Haotian
Robert Milkins
Xu Si
Ricky Walden
Lei Peifan
Anthony McGill
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Ben Woollaston
Scott Donaldson
Fan Zhengyi
Martin O’Donnell
Robbie Williams
Dominic Dale
Daniel Wells
Mark Davis
He Guoqiang
Matthew Stevens
Jordan Brown
Aaron Hill
Graeme Dott
Liu Hongyu
Jamie Jones
David Lilley
Long Zehuang
Sanderson Lam
Jamie Clarke
Anthony Hamilton
David Grace
Joe Perry
Ishpreet Singh Chadha
Stan Moody
Louis Heathcote
Tian Pengfei
Marco Fu
Ashley Carty
Zak Surety
Ma Hailong
Stuart Carrington
Jiang Jun
Ross Muir
Xing Zihao
Michael Holt
Alfie Burden
Rory Thor
Hammad Miah
Ian Burns
Oliver Lines
Alexander Ursenbacher
Liam Graham
Andrew Higginson
Gong Chenzhi
Duane Jones
Antoni Kowalski
Liam Pullen
Jimmy White
Ben Mertens
Sunny Akani
Andrew Pagett
Dean Young
Amir Sarkhosh
Artemijs Zizins
Bulcsu Revesz
Allan Taylor
Liam Davies
Ka Wai Cheung
Julien Leclercq
Haydon Pinhey
Chris Totten
Wang Yuchen
Haris Tahir
Mostafa Dorgham
Robbie McGuigan
Farakh Ajaib
Manasawin Phetmalaikul
Bai Yulu
Huang Jiahao
Mitchell Mann
Reanne Evans
Mink Nutcharut
Kreishh Gurbaxani
Jonas Luz
Ken Doherty
Mohamed Shehab
Hatem Yassen
Ahmed Elsayed
Baipat Siripaporn
WPBSA Nominations
Gao Yang – WSF Champion
Leone Crowley – WSF Junior Champion
Zhao Xintong – Q Tour Europe Winner
Steven Hallworth – Q Tour Playoff 1 Winner
Liam Highfield – Q Tour Playoff 2 Winner
Florian Nuessle – Q Tour Playoff 3 Winner
Brian Cini – WSF Runner-Up
Kaylan Patel – WS Junior Runner-Up
Fergal Quinn – WSF Semi-Finalist
Mateuz Baranowski – WSF Semi-Finalist
Zhou Jinhao – WSF Junior Semi-Finalist
Amaan Iqbal – WSF Junior Semi-Finalist
Michal Szubarcyzk – EBSA U18 Winner
Iulian Boiko – EBSA U21 Champion
Dylan Emery – Q Tour Europe Ranking
Ryan Thomerson – Q Tour Europe Ranking
Q School Top Ups
Simon Blackwell
Joshua Thomond
Paul Deaville
Daniel Womersley
Anton Kazakov
Joshua Cooper
The seeding still could change with the 2025 Tour Championship coming next, and last before the World Championship itself.
Ronnie has entered the event. Will he play? Time will tell. Some posts by Jason Francis and Phil Seymour on social media suggest he will, but then, Ronnie himself had said he would play at the Players Championship in Hong Kong and he withdrew last minute. Now, this is the World championship, he won’t need to travel abroad which of course can be tiring.
We can only wait and hope … IF he does play, how will he perform? Again, it’s impossible to predict. In 2013 he had sat the whole season out, except for a single match he had lost in a PTC, and he won the title. But that was 12 years ago … he was 37 back then, not much older than Judd currently is. Now he is 49. His eyesight is likely not as sharp as it was, and fatigue could be a factor as well. Anyway, there is nothing we can do about … just, as already mentioned, wait and hope.
The action continued in Telford yesterday … and, as far as I’m concerned, life continued to get in the way of snooker1 , so, again, I saw next to nothing of the action at the tables.
John Higgins stormed back from 5-2 down to beat Xiao Guodong 6-5 and make the semi-finals of the Sportsbet.io Players Championship in Telford.
The Wizard of Wishaw captured a first ranking title in four years at the recent World Open in Yushan. He’s since admitted that it has provided newfound confidence after suffering a string of heartbreaking losses.
Higgins now has 32 ranking titles to his name, but his four-year drought extended back to the 2021 Players Championship. The intervening period saw him lose his next five ranking finals.
Next up Higgins, who also won 6-5 in his opening round tie with Chris Wakelin, faces a blockbuster semi-final showdown with world number one Judd Trump. The Scot will be aiming to end a streak 11 consecutive ranking event defeats at the hands of the Englishman.
Xiao dominated the early exchanges this afternoon. He fired in runs of 111, 55, 60 and 104 on his way to storming into a 5-2 lead and moving one from victory.
At that point Higgins dug deep and things began to unravel for Xiao. The Chinese cueman sportingly called a foul on himself after missing a ball with difficult bridging in the eighth and Higgins stepped in with 70 to close within two frames.
Xiao had another opportunity in the ninth, but missed a tricky red to left middle after an unfortunate pack split. Higgins took the frame to make it 5-4.
Both players spurned opportunities in the next, the worst of which was an easy blue to the middle by Xiao. Glasgow’s Higgins forced the final frame, which he controlled to get over the line for a comeback victory.
“I’m very relieved. I’ve been on the wrong end of matches like that, where I’ve been dominant. To come out on the right side is brilliant,” said 49-year-old Higgins.
“I thoroughly enjoyed the game. He was outplaying me, but it was great. There was a packed crowd. I was hoping to make him win the game. Luckily , he missed a couple of pressure balls and let me back into it.
“That is what I’ll miss when I retire from the game. That pressure moment at 5-5 when you have a chance to win the match. You can’t replicate that at any time. It only happens at snooker, in crunch matches. That is one thing I definitely will miss.
“I can’t wait to play Judd. I’m sure the arena will be packed. I’ll be second favourite, maybe a big second favourite. I think I’ll go into it relaxed, knowing that I’ve got to play well to have a chance. Even then it doesn’t guarantee winning. I can’t wait to go out there and give it my all.”
I didn’t see the match but that moment when Xiao called a foul on himself was shared on social media. This is the kind of things the sport we love can be proud about: players perfect honesty. Xiao was playing over a cluster of balls, elevating the cue . Nobody saw the foul, but he felt it and immediately called it. Going by the comments on social media, after that incident Xiao’s game started to disintegrate. Your mind can play tricks on you like that sometimes. A seemingly rather minor thing can damage your confidence or break your concentration.
World Champion Kyren Wilson mounted a superb comeback to rally from 4-1 down and beat Neil Robertson 6-5 to make the Sportsbet.io Players Championship final in Telford.
The Warrior will now appear in his fourth title match of the campaign and the 18th ranking final of his career. He’s already captured silverware this season at the Xi’an Grand Prix, BetVictor Northern Ireland Open and the Machineseeker German Masters.
It’s been an incredible first season as World Champion for Wilson. The Kettering cueman has already amassed £541,800 in ranking events, which has seen him assume second position on the Johnstone’s Paint One-year List behind Judd Trump. He will now face either Trump or John Higgins in Sunday’s final, where he will be aiming to win his tenth ranking crown.
Robertson’s hopes of becoming the first ever player to win all three Players Series events in a single season come to an end. However, his performances in the first two tournaments have seen him secure qualification for the World Championship.
As a result of winning the World Grand Prix in Hong Kong and making the semis this week in Telford, the Australian will rise to ninth in the world rankings.
Robertson got off to a flying start this evening, crafting breaks of 100, 83 and 73 on his way to establishing a 4-1 advantage. Wilson replied with runs of 116 and 57, as he claimed three on the bounce to restore parity at 4-4.
Frame nine brought huge drama. Trailing by 43, Wilson fired in a brilliant clearance of 43 to force a respotted black. However, his safety attempt on the extra ball sent the white into the right middle to hand the frame to Robertson.
World number two Wilson refused to back down and a brilliant break of 89 took the match all the way, setting up a final frame decider. Robertson then left a red to the middle from his break off, Wilson deposited it and made a brilliant total clearance of 134 to emerge a 6-5 victor.
“It is great to make a final of one of these tournaments. The field this week has been so strong. Of the eight quarter-finalists, seven were World Champions. That just shows the standard. I’m so proud that I’ve managed to get to the final,” said 33-year-old Wilson.
“I feel like I dominated most of the matches with Mark Allen and Mark Williams in the first two rounds. They are both great players. I just got off to a slow start against Neil and allowed him to get into his stride.
“When he is hitting the ball the way he can do it is a daunting prospect. At 4-1 down I’m proud of the way I came back. Despite losing that sickener of a frame to go 5-4 down, I’ve come back again and had two one visit frames. It is very pleasing.”
I’ll write it again … Kyren Wilson is indeed carrying himself outstandingly well as a first time World Champion. He should be proud and I do believe that he could well break the Crucible curse come May. It’s a very hard thing to do, of course, and Kyren could even lose on the opening day … but I never felt this way about previous first time World Champions since I’m following the sport.
EBSA 2024 Championship
The Championship is now at the semi-finals stage. Three of the remaining players are British and all three are former professionals. They are Liam Highfield, Dylan Emery and Harvey Chandler. The latter will face Michał Szubarczyk in the semi-finals. Michal is polish, and only 14 years old.
Earlier this month, Michal has won both the under-16, and under-18 EBSA events. What if he was to win the “main” event, the one currently under way and the one that carries a Tour Card for the winner? It would be remarkable, extraordinary even. It would also create a situation that WST will need to handle very carefully. Is it reasonable and safe to give a 14 years old a tour card. Shaun Murphy would probably say yes. Himself wasn’t 16 yet when he turned pro and uses to say “if you are good enough, you are old enough”. I disagree, STRONGLY.
Shaun forgets that
he was nearly 16, not 14.
at the time, there weren’t that many tournaments outside the UK, hence there weren’t, for him, that many “travels” to manage, with the administrative burden that comes with it (visas, flights, hotels and travels organisation to name a few).
he wasn’t going to live in a foreign country away from his family and friends, nor did he need to learn and master a foreign language. Michal is Polish… he would have to deal with all that stuff.
and Shaun’s father was a member of the board…
Michal is too young to have to cope with life on tour without his family close support. The pressure of the main tour combined with relative isolation from family and friends could impact him very badly. Many adult players couldn’t cope. Michal is still a child, he’s still developing. That card, if he earns it, should be put on hold for at least a year, maybe two. If he earns it, he should get it … but not right now.
Although hopefully the administrative, financial and juridic imbroglio I’m caught in, by no fault of myself, will end soon and well – fingers crossed – I tell you … Kafka is still alive and kicking hard somewhere here in Greece! ↩︎
Ronnie O'Sullivan 