The 2019/20 snooker season was extended due to coronavirus, running from May 2019 to August 2020. The women’s season didn’t host any events from February 2020, with the women’s world championship cancelled. Here are the final stats from the season, some of which have already been discussed in my previous snooker post.
2019/20 season (9 May 2019 – 16 Aug 2020)
Triple Crown events
2019 UK Championship (Dec 2019): Ding Junhui beat Stephen Maguire 10-6
2020 Masters (Jan 2020): Stuart Bingham beat Ali Carter 10-8
2020 World Championship (31 Jul – 16 Aug 2020): Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Kyren Wilson 18-8
End of season rankings: 1 – Judd Trump (England); 2 – Ronnie O’Sullivan (England); 3 – Neil Robertson (Australia); 4 – Mark Selby (England).
Most ranking tournaments won (out of 17 in total): Judd Trump (6).
2020 World Women’s Championship: Not held, current holder is Reanne Evans.
Women’s rankings: 1 – Reanne Evans (England); 2 – On Yee Ng (Hong Kong).
Overview
Since I’m mostly up to date from my previous post, this just leaves me to summarise the World Championship, won by Ronnie O’Sullivan (England, age 44) for a sixth time, matching Steve Davis’ haul and one behind Stephen Hendry. He had a fairly straightforward win in the final, against the first-time finalist Kyren Wilson, age 28, from Northern Ireland. O’Sullivan led early on, was pulled back to be only 10-8 ahead, before winning the final eight frames for an 18-8 win. The semi-finals provided the most dramatic stories of the tournament, along with Judd Trump, the holder and world number one, losing 13-9 to Kyren Wilson in the quarter-finals.
Both semi-finals went to a long and tight final frame, Ronnie beating Mark Selby and Kyren beating Anthony McGill, both by 17-16. McGill (Scotland, 28) was a qualifier who was ranked 39th before the World Championships and had won very close games to reach the semi-final: 10-9 in the first round, 13-12 in the second (with his opponent missing a pink when very close to a 13-11 victory in a match that also included some heated exchanges) and 13-10 in the quarters. His luck ran out in the semi-final, when Kyren fluked a green in a 62-minute final frame that ended up 103-83, a record for the most combined points scored in a single frame at the Crucible. Kyren apologised after the game, saying he didn’t want to win the match on a fluke.
O’Sullivan went 5-1 up in his semi-final, Selby came back to lead 13-9, O’Sullivan leveled at 13-13, but then fell 16-14 behind, meaning he had to win the last three frames to reach the final. He made rapid breaks of 138 and 71 to win the next two frames and 64 in the final frame, but missed the last red he needed to clinch the match, which then descended into a safety battle—which O’Sullivan won. Selby accused him of being a bit disrespectful afterwards, based on some shots where O’Sullivan seemed to go gung-ho, potentially throwing away or giving up on frames, saying “every time I got him in a snooker he just went down and hit the ball at 100 mph and it could have gone anywhere”. O’Sullivan responded that he wasn’t as good at snookers as Selby and had to play the shots differently.
Finally, I always track the ladies to see if we can have a first woman in the 32-strong main draw. Only Reanne Evans was involved in the qualifying rounds, losing in the first of three rounds, 6-3 to Andy Hicks, so we’ll have to wait another year. Two other women (Ng On-yee and Nutcharut Wongharuthai, ranked two and three in the world) declined to participate due to coronavirus safety concerns.
The 2020/21 season so far
The season started in September with the European Masters, considerably later than normal due to the delays to the 2019/20 season. A truncated timetable is planned, with the end of season planned for the normal time of early May, at the culmination of the next World Championship. As a result, the number of ranking tournaments has been reduced to a probable fifteen. Seven of those have already been held, with Judd Trump winning three and Mark Selby two. However, Neil Robertson has won the first triple crown event, the UK Championship, beating Judd Trump 10-9 in a final where there was never more than one frame between them. At time of release, Judd Trump is well clear at number one in the rankings, with Neil Robertson second, Ronnie O’Sullivan third and Mark Selby fourth. All tournaments so far have been played in Milton Keynes due to coronavirus restrictions, and it has been decided that all events this season will take place in Europe. The next triple crown event is the invitation Masters, due 10-17 January at its normal home of Alexandra Palace. Women’s snooker has not yet resumed since the Belgian Open in February in 2020, for safety reasons and particularly the cost of complying with COVID-19 testing. Details and updates are on the World Women’s Snooker website.
Useful Links for the season
WPBSA: Website for snooker’s professional body
World Snooker Tour: Contains details of all the ranking events including live scores and a link to Matchroom Live, which provides a streaming subscription service and free access to archived video
2020/21 snooker season Wikipedia: provides details and results of the season’s events, along with links to details of each tournament
2020/21 world rankings Wikipedia: a simple view of the current rankings for the season (view the rightmost column)
