Professional tournaments in table-top cue sports took place in 2020. These events include snooker, pool disciplines and billiards. Whilst these are traditionally singles sports, some matches and tournaments are held as doubles or as teams. [1] The snooker season runs between May and April, whilst the pool and billiards seasons is listed over the calendar year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was disrupted with many events being cancelled or postponed. Cue sports events were played in January and February, before tournaments were discontinued for all disciplines due to the pandemic, returning in June without an audience.
Ronnie O'Sullivan won the only professional world championship held during the year, the World Snooker Championship. The other Triple Crown events, the UK Championship and Masters, were won by Neil Robertson and Stuart Bingham, respectively. The only major pool tournament held during the year was the Mosconi Cup, won by the European team.
The cue sport pool encompasses several disciplines, such as straight pool and nine-ball. Events such as the WPA World Nine-ball Championship, [2] World Pool Masters, [3] and the World Cup of Pool, [4] were all postponed to the following year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Mosconi Cup, contested between select teams from the US and Europe was played in December. [5]
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
December 1–4 | Mosconi Cup | England (Coventry) | Europe | USA | 11–3 | [5] [6] |
The Euro Tour is a professional nine-ball series run across Europe by the European Pocket Billiard Federation. [7] There was just one event, the Treviso Open, with tournaments for both men and women. [8] For the list now, (m) refers to the men's event and (f) to the women's tournament.
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
February 20–22 | Treviso Open | Italy (Treviso) |
| [9] [10] |
Two World Billiards events were played in 2020, the remaining devices were postponed or cancelled. [11] [12]
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
January 25 | Scottish Open | Scotland (Kirkcaldy) | David Causier | Peter Gilchrist | 619–350 | [13] |
February 14 | Sydney Open | Australia (Sydney) | Peter Gilchrist | Joe Minini | 811–450 | [14] |
The Three-Cushion World Cup traditionally played over several events had a single tournament in 2020. [15]
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
February 17–23 | Three-Cushion World Cup – event 1 | Turkey (Antalya) | Dani Sánchez | Dick Jaspers | 50–35 | [16] |
The World Snooker Tour generally begins in July and ends in May, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2019–20 snooker season ended in August, whereas the 2020–21 snooker season began in September. [17] [18] Ronnie O'Sullivan won his sixth World Snooker Championship, defeating Kyren Wilson in the final. [19]
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
January 12–19 | The Masters | England (London) | Stuart Bingham | Ali Carter | 10–8 | [35] |
October 7 – May 3 | 2019–20 Championship League | England (Leicester) | Scott Donaldson | Graeme Dott | 3–0 | [36] |
July 1–11 | 2020 Championship League | England (Milton Keynes) | Luca Brecel | N/A | Round-robin | [37] |
November 2– 8 | 2020 Champion of Champions | England (Milton Keynes) | Mark Allen | Neil Robertson | 10–6 | [38] |
The Challenge Tour is a secondary non-professional snooker tour with events for invited players. [39] [40] The final four events of the 2019–20 Challenge Tour were played during 2020.
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
January 18–19 | Challenge Tour 8 | England (Tamworth) | Lukas Kleckers | Tyler Rees | 3–1 | [41] |
February 15–16 | Challenge Tour 9 | Wales (Llanelli) | Ashley Hugill | Sydney Wilson | 3–1 | [42] |
March 1–2 | Challenge Tour 10 | England (Leicester) | Adam Duffy | Kuldesh Johal | 3–1 | [43] |
July 20 | Challenge Tour Play Offs | England (Sheffield) | Allan Taylor | Adam Duffy | 4–0 | [44] |
The World Seniors Tour is an amateur series open to players aged 40 and over. [45] There was a single event in the 2020 World Seniors Tour. [45]
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
August 19–22 | World Seniors Championship | England (Sheffield) | Jimmy White | Ken Doherty | 5–4 | [46] |
The women's tour is an amateur tour, with one event held in Belgium during 2020.
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
January 31 – February 2 | Belgium Women's Open | Belgium (Bruges) | Ng On-yee | Reanne Evans | 4–2 | [47] |
The English Amateur Championship was played in 2020, the hundredth staging of the event. [48]
Date(s) | Tournament | Location | Winner | Runner-up | Score | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5–8 February 2020 | English Amateur Championship | England (Cheltenham) | Ben Hancorn | Rory McLeod | 5–3 | [48] |
William Joseph Mosconi was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the World Straight Pool Championship nineteen times. For most of the 20th century, his name was essentially synonymous with pool in North America – he was nicknamed "Mr. Pocket Billiards" – and he was among the first Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame inductees. Mosconi pioneered and regularly employed numerous trick shots, set many records, and helped to popularize pool as a national recreation activity.
The Scottish Open is a ranking professional snooker tournament held in the United Kingdom. The tournament had many name changes in its history, as the tournament was formerly called International Open, Matchroom Trophy and Players Championship. Apart from a hiatus in the 1990/1991 and 1991/1992 seasons, the tournament remained a ranking event until 2003/2004. In the 2012/2013 season the tournament was added back to the calendar as part of the Players Tour Championship minor-ranking series.
Corey Deuel is an American professional pool player from West Jefferson, Ohio. Nicknamed "Prince of Pool", he won the US Open Nine-ball Championship in 2001, and has won many other major titles. In January 2008, he was ranked the second highest US pool player by the United States Professional Poolplayers Association. He regularly represents the US in the Mosconi Cup. In 2010, he again was selected for the US team in the Mosconi Cup and was responsible for winning 2 of the US team's 8 points in the event. His tournament walk-on music is "Disco Inferno" by the Trammps.
Niels Feijen is a Dutch professional pool player, from the Hague. His nickname is "the Terminator". In 2014 he won the WPA World 9-ball championship.
In snooker, a century break is a break of 100 points or more, compiled in one visit to the table. A century break requires potting at least 25 consecutive balls, and the ability to score centuries is regarded as a mark of the highest skill in snooker. Ronnie O'Sullivan has described a player's first century break as the "ultimate milestone for any snooker player". Joe Davis made the first televised century break in 1962.
Darren Appleton is an English professional pool player, best known for playing Eight-ball, Nine-ball and Ten-ball pool.
The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of about 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial arm of professional snooker, which introduced the World Snooker Tour name, logo, and revised website as part of a 2020 rebranding. The principal stakeholder in World Snooker Ltd is Matchroom Sport, which owns 51 percent of the company; the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), owns 26 percent. To compete on the World Snooker Tour, players must be WPBSA members.
The Tour Championship is a professional snooker tournament first held in 2019. The event features the twelve highest ranked players on the one-year ranking list, which reflects prize money won at ranking events since the beginning of the season. The Tour Championship is the third and final tournament in the Players Series, following the World Grand Prix and the Players Championship. The event features a prize fund of £380,000, with the winner receiving £150,000. The tournament is broadcast by ITV Sport in the United Kingdom and Eurosport across the rest of Europe. The reigning champion is Mark Williams, who won the 2024 Tour Championship with a 10–5 win over Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final.
Joshua Filler is a German professional pool player from Bönen, Germany. In 2018 Filler defeated Carlo Biado 13–10 to win the 2018 WPA World Nine-ball Championship. In 2017 he was the youngest player to win the China Open, and in 2018 he also won the 10-ball European Pool Championships. Filler became WPA and Euro Tour world number 1 in 2019, and later he reached the final of the 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship before losing 10–7 to Ko Ping-chung.
The 2019–20 snooker season was a series of professional snooker tournaments played between 9 May 2019 and 22 August 2020. In total, 47 events were held during the season: however, the ending of the season was highly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 18 world ranking tournaments were planned to take place, but only 17 were played. An event was held in Austria, the first time in any snooker season, while the 2020 China Open was cancelled. The Tour Championship and the World Snooker Championship were postponed, and the Gibraltar Open played with no audience. The season contained 128 professional tour players, 35 of which had been given new two-year places on the tour from a combination of invitations and qualifying events.
The sport of professional snooker has had a world ranking system in place since 1976. Certain tournaments were given "ranking" status, with the results at those events contributing to a player's world ranking. The events that made up the 1976–77 snooker season were the first to award players with ranking points. Originally, the world rankings were decided based only on results in the World Snooker Championship, but other events were later added. The system used for the 2019–20 snooker season was first used in the 2010–11 season, where players won ranking points based entirely on prize money won from these events. The rankings are based on the prior two seasons, with ten revisions after specific tournaments throughout the season. These revisions are used as official rankings, with points awarded in the current season overwriting those from two years prior.
The year of 2019 included professional tournaments surrounding table-top cue sports. These events include snooker, pool disciplines and billiards. Whilst these are traditionally singles sports, some matches and tournaments are held as doubles, or team events. The snooker season runs between May and April, whilst the pool and billiards seasons run in the calendar year.
In 2018, championships were held across three continents to determine the best players in major cue sports, including snooker, pool, and English billiards. While these are mostly single player sports, some matches and tournaments are held as either doubles or as team events. The snooker season runs between May and April; the pool and billiards seasons run through the calendar year.
The sport of professional snooker has had a world ranking system in place since 1976. Certain tournaments were given ranking status, with the results at those events contributing to a player's world ranking. The events that made up the 1976–77 snooker season were the first to use ranking points, awarding points from earlier seasons. Originally, the world rankings were decided based only on results in the World Snooker Championship, but other events were later added. The system used for the 2020–21 snooker season was first used in the 2010–11 season, where players were awarded ranking points based entirely on prize money won from these events. The rankings are based on the prior two seasons, with ten revisions after specific tournaments throughout the season. These revisions are used as official rankings, with points awarded in the current season overwriting those from two years prior.
Judd Trump has made eight maximum breaks and more than 1,000 century breaks in the professional sport of snooker.
The BetVictor European Series is a snooker tournament series established in 2019. It was expanded from four tournaments in the 2019–20 season to six tournaments in the 2020–21 season and then to eight tournaments for the 2021–22 season, the 2022–23 season and the 2023–24 season. The player who wins the most cumulative prize money in European Series events each season receives a bonus prize of £150,000. Judd Trump won the bonus prize in the first two and the fifth seasons, while John Higgins took the bonus in the third season, and Robert Milkins claimed it in the fourth.
The 2021–22 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played from July 2021 to May 2022, including the professional World Snooker Tour but also featuring events for female, senior, and Q School players. The season saw a record five players claim their first professional ranking titles: David Gilbert, Zhao Xintong, Hossein Vafaei, Fan Zhengyi, and Robert Milkins. Nutcharut Wongharuthai won her first World Women's Snooker Championship, becoming the only player besides Reanne Evans and Ng On-yee to win the women's world title in 19 years. Ronnie O'Sullivan won the World Snooker Championship, equalling Stephen Hendry's modern era record of seven world titles and becoming the oldest world champion in snooker history at the age of 46 years and 148 days. Lee Walker won his first World Seniors Championship.
The official 2021/2022 snooker world ranking points for the professional snooker players on the World Snooker Main Tour in the 2021–22 season are based on performances in ranking tournaments over a two-year rolling period. The rankings at the start of 2021/2022 season are determined by prize money earned in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons and are updated after every tournament carrying ranking status; the players are re-ranked at the beginning of the current season after removing players relegated at the end of the previous season from the ranking list. As points are accrued from tournaments throughout the current season, the points from the corresponding tournaments from two seasons earlier are dropped. The rankings are used to set the official tournament seedings at various points throughout the season; even though the rankings are officially updated after every tournament carrying ranking status not all the rankings are used as seedings, and only the rankings officially used as seedings are documented below. The total points accumulated by the cut-off dates for the revised seedings are based on all the points up to that date in the 2021/2022 season, all of the points from the 2020/2021 season, and the points from the 2019/2020 season that have not yet been dropped.
The sport of professional snooker has had a world ranking system in place since 1976. Certain tournaments were given "ranking" status, with the results at those events contributing to a player's world ranking. The events that made up the 1976–77 snooker season were the first to award players with ranking points. Originally, the world rankings were decided based only on results in the World Snooker Championship, but other events were later added. The system used for the 2022–23 snooker season was first used in the 2010–11 season, where players won ranking points based entirely on prize money won from these events. The rankings are based on the prior two seasons, with eight revisions after specific tournaments throughout the season. These revisions are used as official rankings, with points awarded in the current season overwriting those from two years prior.