After the wonderful festivities of the World Championship, we have the qualifying school for amateurs or relegated professionals to win a fresh two-year two card. Does this mean this is the end of this season or the start of next season? I don’t know, Sweden is lovely.
With the light of the Crucible going out and those who participated in the World Championships returning to rest, 202 snooker players from 31 different countries have come far and wide to win 12 places to the professional tour. And it is diverse as you can get. The nationalities represented are: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Australia, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Iran, USA, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Ukraine, Poland, Belgium, France, Romania, Sweden, Austria, Iceland, Estonia, Malta and Turkey.
For those who scoff and think it would be hilarious to see someone from a snooker-starved country as ambiguous as South Korea or Saudi Arabia enter the tour: we had a Finn and a Norwegian re-enter via Q School; we had a Maltese and a German enter via Q School; and last but not least we had the first ever Qatari and Swiss professionals because of Q School. A lot of surprises can happen here!
Snooker has become more and more appealing over the past few years. Thanks to Barry Hearn and the magical world of globalisation, people became more aware of snooker and are inspired to make their first crack at it. With the promise of the Challenge Tour to those who failed to make the cut at Q School is also a massive incentive, with many seeing this as a way to combat the lack of events in the amateur circuit. It has drawn many ex-pros into the game, with opportunity and the increase of prize money being enough for former professional to take advantage of the growing potential of the game!
https://twitter.com/AndrewPagett/status/978689837833375744
The Q-School Format
The Q School has changed its qualification criteria since it was first implemented at the start of the 2011/2012 season. Previously the number of places were reduced from the original 12 to 8 and for a couple of seasons, places were determined by the Order of Merit (i.e. those who were the most consistent losers).
This year however, Q School have returned to the original format. There will be three events with four amateurs qualifying from each event. Each player will play between 5-6 matches of best-of-7s in each event. Whoever wins their quarter of the draw will progress with with a professional two-year card. If they won in Event 1 and Event 2, their places in future Q School events be withdrawn and their drawn opponent will simply receive a bye to the next round. The dates are:
Event 1: 14-19 May
Event 2: 20-25 May
Event 3: 26-31 May
The full details of the draws and the format is under this link: http://www.worldsnooker.com/2018-q-school-draws/
This certainly fits Barry Hearn’s university of brutality to strengthen the mentalities of snooker players but it is a very good and flexible way of separating the wheat from the chaff. The only thing I worry about is the best-of-7 formats and I wouldn’t mind seeing the final round being a best-of-9 to spice things up a little. The other thing I did enquire is a seeding system within Q School so that those who did well in the previous year or in ranking tournaments can gain a fair advantage. However, this would be completely unfair towards Oceania and Asian players who are unlikely to reach the ranking events and international tournaments in Europe. So a completely random draw it is then.
The Players
The Relegated Professionals
There will be 17 professionals who have just been relegated from the professional tour. They are as thus:
David Grace, Jamie Curtis-Barrett, Thor Chuan Leong, Christopher Keogan, Sam Craigie, Alex Borg, Jak Jones, Fang Xiongman, Sam Baird, Zhao Xintong, Adam Duffy, Craig Steadman, Chen Zhe, Hammad Miah, Mitchell Mann, Leo Fernandez and Wang Yuchen.
Out of these professionals alone, five of them have made at least one Crucible appearance, most famously Sam Baird reaching the Last 16 in 2016 by beating Michael White in the first round before losing to eventual champion Mark Selby 13-11. He gets relegated because he lost a lot of points from that run, but what is incredible is how much talent are fighting for their careers.
Among four Chinamen fighting in Q School, probably the biggest shock is seeing Zhao Xintong there. One of the prospects tipped and destined for stardom hasn’t quite followed in the footsteps of Zhou Yuelong and Yan Bingtao as of yet. He was perhaps unlucky to be relegated. Despite knocking Aditya Mehta out of the running, he was pegged back in the Top 8 one-year ranking list too. Same for Sam Craigie, who was a place out, largely due to Lyu Haotian’s ascension to the Top 64.
Of those pros, Craigie and Zhao are likely to be hot favourites, however Craig Steadman, Chen Zhe, Adam Duffy and Hammad Miah managed to escape from the clutches of Q School. The likes of Miah, Duffy and Chen already succeeded from qualifying twice and there could be a chance to make it three times lucky for them!
The Ex-Pros
As much as I would love to talk about Dechawat Poomjaeng, there are many other talented players going in to have another crack in the professional game.
DECHAWAT POOMJAENG IS GOING TO BE IN Q SCHOOL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. 😀😀😀😀😀 pic.twitter.com/EbNUOq2t8K
— Cluster of Reds (@clusterofreds1) April 4, 2018
There’s a wonderful list to go through. Among those former professionals are Krisitjan Helgason, Barry Pinches, Jamie Cope, Andy Hicks, Dechawat Poomjaeng, Joel Walker, Fraser Patrick, Andrew Pagett, Lu Ning, Michael Judge, Kacper Filipiak, Reanne Evans and the oldest player to qualify this year, 68 year-old Dessie Sheehan.
Arguably the biggest player to grace the Meadowside Leisure Centre in Burton is Jamie Cope. He was at a ranking high of No. 13 in the world, a Masters semi-finalist, was in two ranking finals and made 3 maximums in his career. Due to ill health and suffering from the ‘yips,’ an hereditary essential tremor, in his cue arm, he had dropped out of the tour and failed to qualify via Q School and missed out of the 2017/2018 season.
When someone is better than a lot of the tour but isn’t on it…
Jamie Cope. #Shotgun
— Michael Holt (@hitmanholt) April 14, 2018
Many of these professionals tried Q School last year and failed to make the cut and you know how haphazard it gets when Crucible semi-finalist Hicks and multiple female World Champion Evans couldn’t make in recent years. Patrick and Helgason arrive at Q School winning their national titles this year so we can expect them to go into this with a lot of confidence, particularly after Helgason’s semi-final defeat in the recent WSF Mixed Championships where he was beaten from 3-1 up against Adam Stefanow.
However, Andrew Pagett decided to have another go after winning the Indian Cue Masters League and getting bored of annoying Mark Williams. Of course, I would love to see Dechawat Poomjaeng qualify. He had been practicing in the pool scene after recovering from a kidney problem that dogged his last professional season. The tour really missed him but it won’t be a walk in the park to progress here. Perhaps the amateurs will get distracted because of his antics – I don’t know.
The Hot Prospects
There are a number of young players who have shown promise from a very young age and due to very intense competition haven’t managed to breakthrough yet, despite spending a long time in the amateur ranks. Shane Castle leading Mark Selby in the opening round of the 2013 UK Championship.Oliver Brown once whitewashed Ding Junhui 5-0 in the 2014 Wuxi Classic. Ashley Carty qualifying for the 2015 German Masters by beating Robert Milkins and James Cahill, who is also in competition to qualify.
All eyes will be on the 16 year-old Welshman who can grow a better beard than I can. Jackson Page won the 2017 & 2018 EBSA European Under-18 Championship and gave Yan Bingtao a run for his money. He reached the final round and the second final round of Q School last year and will hope to qualify properly. What I am concerned about is the pressure he will be under, especially being Mark William’s prodigy and unfortunately is in the middle of a very public spat between Williams and Darren Morgan. On the other hand, the The Welsh Potting Machine’s phenomenal World Championship win will aspire him to greater things. This is the same for other compatriots, such as 2016 EBSA European Under-18 winner Tyler Rees, Alex Taubman and Dylan Emery.
Then there are some curved balls. Mateusz Baranowski is someone who can bring glory to Poland, especially when Filipiak reached the WSF Mixed semi-finals in such an unfortunate fashion due to a fluke by eventual winner Luo Honghao. It is also a shame not to see the finalist Adam Stefanow, who hasn’t entered the qualifiers.
Have have many other international youngsters in our midst. Estonia’s Andres Petrov, who reached the 2017 European U21 semi-finals and the 2017 European finals and lost to Chris Totten, will hope to follow the footsteps of professional Continental Europeans such as Luca Brecel and Alexander Ursenbacher. A few eyebrows will be raised to see a French professional but Brian Ochoiski will hope to stop that. Or will yet another Chinaman sweep through, with Hu Hao, who whitewashed Alan McManus in the 2017 Indian Open, smash the school to smithereens?
The Intriguing Amateurs
Now we have those who plan to throw a curved ball for our entertainment. Female players Heather Clare, Ng On-yee and Nutcharut Wongharuthai alongside Reanne Evans hope to made history by qualifying as professionals. WSF Female Champion Ng made a decent stint in Q School last year, winning three matches by defeating former professional Dessie Sheehan and current pro Joe Swail. Clare and 2018 British Open runner-up, 2018 World Women’s Under-21 Championship winner Wongharuthai aims to through the spanner in the works and challenge the Q School.
The there is William Thomson from Carluke in Scotland who has won two tournaments on the World Disability Billiards and Snooker tour this season. Lastly, there is a sibling rivalry when Jamie Trump, a relation to Judd and Barry Pinches’s son Luke. Hopefully he won’t be as slow as his father, who was part of the longest frame in the history of snooker before Fergal O’Brien and David Gilbert beat him to it.
We also have some unknowns coming into the fray. Liverpool’s Sean Maddocks, who made a 147 in competition earlier this year at the age of 15. Remarkably, Ukraine’s Iulian Boiko is just 12 years of age, who participated in all ESBA and WSF events this season, with his best result reaching the knockout rounds of the Men’s European Championships.
We have a number of pool players such as Danish Daniel Kandi, who recently made a maximum in the past few months and American Corey Deuel who hope to be more successful than English pool player Chris Melling, who played professional snooker between 2014 – 2016.
The full list of players are via this link: http://www.worldsnooker.com/snooker-q-school-receives-190-entries/
BRING ON THE GAUNTLET. Event 1 happens on Monday!
