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.
Neil Robertson is an Australian professional snooker player, who is a former world champion and former world number one. To date, he is the most successful player from outside the United Kingdom, and the only non-UK born to have completed snooker's Triple Crown, having won the World Championship in 2010, the Masters in 2012 and 2022, and the UK Championship in 2013, 2015 and 2020. He has claimed a career total of 23 ranking titles, having won at least one professional tournament every year between 2006 and 2022.
Mark Anthony Selby is an English professional snooker player. Ranked world number one on multiple occasions, he has won a total of 22 ranking titles, placing him eighth on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners. He is a four-time World Snooker Champion, and has won the Masters three times and the UK Championship twice for a total of nine Triple Crown titles, putting him on a par with John Higgins, and behind only Ronnie O’Sullivan (23), Stephen Hendry (18) and Steve Davis (15).
Judd Trump is an English professional snooker player who is a former world champion and former world number one. Widely regarded as one of the sport's most talented players, he is currently fifth on the list of all-time ranking event winners with 27 ranking titles. He has also won four Triple Crown titles.
Mark Allen is a Northern Irish professional snooker player from Antrim. He won the World Amateur Championship in 2004, turned professional the following year, and took only three seasons to reach the top 16. In his fourth professional season, he beat the defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan en route to the semi-finals of the 2009 World Championship, where he lost to the eventual winner, John Higgins.
The Champion of Champions is a professional non-ranking snooker tournament. It was held in 1978 and 1980 and was then revived in 2013 by Matchroom Sport. The reigning champion is Mark Allen, who won the title for the second time in 2023.
The 2016–17 snooker season was a series of professional snooker tournaments played between 5 May 2016 and 1 May 2017.
The 2017 Welsh Open was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 13 to 19 February 2017 at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff. It was the fourteenth ranking event of the 2016/2017 season.
The 2018 UK Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament, that took place from 27 November to 9 December 2018. It was the ninth ranking tournament and the first Triple Crown event of the 2018/2019 season. The event was broadcast on BBC Sport and Eurosport in the United Kingdom.
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 2019 Northern Ireland Open was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 11 to 17 November 2019 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The fourth edition of the Northern Ireland Open, it was the sixth ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season, the second tournament of the Home Nations Series. Featuring a prize fund of £405,000, the winner received £70,000. The event was broadcast on Eurosport and Quest domestically and was sponsored by betting company 19.com.
The 2020–21 snooker season was a professional snooker season with tournaments played from 13 September 2020 to 9 May 2021. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was played almost entirely without a live audience with only the 2021 World Snooker Championship being played in front of a crowd. All snooker tournaments in the season were played in the United Kingdom, due to travel and quarantine restrictions preventing the tour and players from utilising usual venues.
The 2021 Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 10 and 17 January 2021 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. It was the 47th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2020–21 season, following the 2020 UK Championship and preceding the 2021 World Snooker Championship. The top sixteen players from the snooker world rankings were invited to compete in a knockout tournament. The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association organised the tournament, which was broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred. It was played behind closed doors because of COVID-19 restrictions in the United Kingdom. Two players, world number one Judd Trump and Jack Lisowski, withdrew from the event after testing positive for COVID-19.
The 2020 Northern Ireland Open was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place from 16 to 22 November 2020 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. It was the fourth ranking event of the 2020–21 season and a part of the Home Nations Series. It was the fifth edition of the Northern Ireland Open.
The 2020 UK Championship was a professional snooker tournament, that took place from 23 November to 6 December 2020 at the Marshall Arena, in Milton Keynes, England. The event was the first Triple Crown and fifth ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season. The tournament was played behind closed doors due to COVID-19 restrictions. The event was broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport and featured a prize fund of £1,009,000 with the winner receiving £200,000.
The 2021 Championship League Invitational was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament, that took place from 4 Januaryto 2 April 2021 in the Ballroom, Stadium MK in Milton Keynes, England. It is the 16th staging of the tournament.
The 2021 Players Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament, that took place from 22 to 28 February 2021 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. It was the 11th ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season.
The 2021 Northern Ireland Open was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place from 9 to 17 October 2021 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was the third ranking event of the 2021–22 season and the first tournament in both the Home Nations Series and the European Series. It was the sixth edition of the Northern Ireland Open.
The 2021 English Open was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place from 1–7 November 2021 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. It was the fourth ranking event of the 2021–22 season, and the second event in both the Home Nations Series and the European Series. Qualifying for the tournament took place from 17 to 22 September 2021 at the Metrodome in Barnsley, England, although matches involving the top 16 players, and two other matches involving English wildcards, were held over and played at the Marshall Arena. The event was broadcast on Eurosport across the United Kingdom and Europe.
The 2022 Northern Ireland Open was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 16 to 23 October 2022 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the fourth ranking event of the 2022–23 season, the first tournament in the Home Nations Series, and the third tournament in the BetVictor Series. It was the seventh edition of the Northern Ireland Open since the event was first staged in 2016. The tournament was broadcast on Quest and Eurosport domestically. The winner received £80,000 from a total prize purse of £427,000.
Judd Trump (ENG)
