For those who don’t know, history has been made. No, really.
22-year-old Luca Brecel became the winner of the China Championship before lifting the golden trophy that seems to be bigger than him. The Belgian Bullet beat Triple Crown winner Shaun Murphy 10-5 to claim his first ranking title. He’s also the first player from mainland Europe to win a full ranking event and he reaches the Top 16 for the first time.
Though Brecel won three of the previous four meetings against the Magician, each of those victories was in a best-of-7 match, so to win in a long match against a Top 8 player considering all the opponents he beat is quite special. Before the final, he swept aside Marco Fu, showed his resilience by storming back from 4-1 down to win the decider against fan favourite Ronnie O’Sullivan and from behind again to beat in-form Li Hang. In the first session of the final, Brecel was 3-1 behind against Murphy but reeled off four frames in a row, only to be dealt a body blow by losing the final frame of the session to lead 5-4. However, he took advantage of Murphy’s off-colour display in the second session and many fist pumps later, Brecel manages to pocket a cool £150,000 cheque. You can get over 1,320 Neymars or 660,000,000 Freddos for that. Bloody hell.
In my opinion, this victory is very important for the future of snooker and I don’t mean this season. This will have a significant impact on Luca himself, the young generation, the Masters race and the development of European snooker. Let’s break this down:
Luca Brecel
I’m sure Luca will be welcomed as a hero when he enters the European Masters arena in Lommel. When he arrived at the scene by qualifying for the 2012 World Championship as a 17-year-old, most of us knew he was going to be good, despite losing 10-5 to Stephen Maguire. Dennis Taylor said that we could be looking at a possible future superstar and an impressed Maguire said it would be a travesty if Brecel wasn’t given a wildcard at the end of the season. Here is his century break five years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eThZF0t2M4g&feature=youtu.be
Though he progressed up the snooker ranks slower than most people expected, he looked like a man transformed in the last World Championship, even though he lost to Marco Fu. Because of this win, Luca will get invited to this season’s Champion of Champions and a likely entry to the World Grand Prix and the Player’s Championship. He leapt from No. 27 to No. 15 in the rankings, which means he is now in the running to participate in the Masters, leaving the likes of Mark Williams and Ryan Day to sweat a tad. But my question is: How long can he keep his place in the Top 16?
I know I’m jumping a few fences here. However, we have seen in the past few years Kyren Wilson, Michael White and Anthony McGill trying to follow in the footsteps of Judd Trump by winning their first ranking title at a young age and establishing themselves as a Top 16 player. Only Kyren has succeeded so far, as White and McGill have failed to qualify for past editions of the Masters, lost their first round matches in the World Championships as a Top 16 seed and are currently outside of the elite. Which route will Luca Brecel take and will he even qualify for this year’s Masters?
The Young Generation
Not only this is great news for Luca, since he lost his first final to Martin Gould in the 2016 German Masters, but his win could finally start a trend for more youthful winners.
It’s taken a while since Kyren Wilson’s 2015 Shanghai Masters triumph for any more of the young generation to break through. However, we just saw in the China Championship alone that 19-year-old Zhou Yuelong reached his second quarter-final and 26-year-old Li Hang reached his first semi-final. A few people rated Zhou as the most likely player to win their first ranking title now. Other players such as Hossein Vafaei, Yan Bingtao, Oliver Lines and Noppon Saengkham are slowly climbing the rankings, so who knows? Luca’s win may instil confidence in these players to win their first ranking tournament over the next few years and finally gather momentum. After all, after two ranking tournaments this season, both were won by first-time winners Day and Brecel.
Maybe this would open the door for more seasoned players. As well as Zhou, top flight players looking for their first win include David Gilbert, Michael Holt and Ben Woollaston. Could they be inspired to win their first ranking title too? Maybe this will give young winners Anthony McGill and Michael White a kick up the backside they need to add another trophy to their cabinets (checked Tottenham Hotspur’s – it’s still bare).
Continental Europe
Luca Brecel made history as the first snooker player to win a ranking title who is from continental Europe, so for obvious reasons, this is absolutely huge. You could argue Luca Brecel is one of the successful exports from the minor-ranking Players Tour Championship events, created to advertise snooker to countries such as Belgium, Latvia, Germany and Bulgaria. As an amateur, Brecel was participating in these events from the 2010/2011 season.
Even in Belgium, there are some talented amateurs in his World Cup partners Jeff Jacobs and Tomasz Skalski, but his ranking win will definitely spread a huge amount of interest across the continent, encouraging more players. Let’s not forget, Kurt Maflin, Robin Hull, Alexander Ursenbacher and Lukas Kleckers are also representatives from mainland Europe – who will be next one? Or will Luca Brecel win another title before they do?
