This is my third post on snooker, after a summary article in Aug 2017 and an update in August 2018. This is 18 months later, but I do bring you up to date eventually! If this is your only source of information on snooker, here’s the info you desperately want to know, starting with the results from the Triple Crown events and the World Women’s Championship:
2018/19 season (10 May 2018 – 6 May 2019)
2018 UK Championship (December 2018): Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Mark Allen 10-6
2019 Masters (January 2019): Judd Trump beat Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-4
2019 World Championship (20 Apr – 6 May 2019): Judd Trump beat John Higgins 18-9
2019 World Women’s Championship (Jun 2019): Reanne Evans beat Nutcharut Wongharuthai 6-3
2019/20 season (9 May 2019 – 16 Aug 2020)
2019 UK Championship (December 2019): Ding Junhui beat Stephen Maguire 10-6
2020 Masters (January 2020): Stuart Bingham beat Ali Carter 10-8
2020 World Championship: To be held Fri 31 Jul – Sun 16 Aug
2020 World Women’s Championship: Postponed from June until later in the year
World rankings: After just over four years at world number one, Mark Selby was deposed by Ronnie O’Sullivan in March 2019, who became number one for the fourth time in his career and the first since 2010. Ronnie was number one at the end of the 2018/19 season, but his reign was ended in Aug 2019 by Judd Trump, who has remained there since. The current rankings order is: 1 – Judd Trump (England); 2 – Neil Robertson (Australia); 3 – Mark Williams (Wales); 4 – John Higgins (Scotland); 5 – Mark Allen (N Ireland); 6 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (England); 7 – Mark Selby (England). Reanne Evans from England is the women’s number one, taking over from Ng On Yee in April 2019.
Summary of Events
The 2018/19 season culminated with Judd Trump’s maiden victory in the World Championship, at the age of 29. John Higgins lost his third consecutive World Championship final, in what was quoted as one of the highest quality finals played, with 11 century breaks between them, a record for a snooker match; Judd Trump scored 7 of these, which is a joint record for an individual in a match. Judd Trump, Neil Robertson and Ronnie O’Sullivan each won three ranking tournaments in the season, and Judd also beat Ronnie in the non-ranking Masters, one of the three Triple Crown events alongside the UK and World Championships. Given Ronnie O’Sullivan’s performance in the 2017/18 season (winning five ranking tournaments), this was enough to make him number one at the end of the 2018/19 season, with Judd Trump as number two.
Judd moved into overdrive in 2019/20, and had won 6 of the 15 ranking tournaments that had been played when the season was suspended in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. He is currently well clear at number one in the rankings. The extended season resumed on 1 June with the non-ranking Championship League in Milton Keynes currently underway, and it will finish with the World Championship taking place in the first half of August.
In the 2019 World Women’s Championship, held in Bangkok, Nutcharut Wongharuthai, a 20-year-old player from Thailand, beat the reigning champion and number one, Ng On Yee, in the quarter finals. She made the final, where she lost to Reanne Evans, who claimed her 12th world championship. Reanne leapfrogged Ng at the top of the world rankings during the 2018/19 season and is still there today, with Ng at number two and Nutcharut at number three. Ng and Reanne both played in the first qualifying round of the 2019 World Championship, Reanne losing 10-2 to Zhang Yong and Ng 10-6 to Alan McManus. This means we’re still waiting for a woman to reach the televised stages of the World Championship, but it’ll happen one day (Fallon Sherrock showed the way earlier this year, by reaching the third round of the 2020 PDC World Darts Championship).
Note: intriguingly, the women’s championship was renamed from the World Ladies Championship to the World Women’s Championship in 2019, after the governing body, World Ladies Billiards and Snooker Association, was rebranded as World Women’s Snooker.
Next stop is the World Championship in August, and of course I’ll have pen quivering and be ready to report on this (within six months of the result).
