January will be very busy in the land of snooker. Of course, we have the beautiful Dafabet Masters coming up next week. There are two ranking events in the pipeline called the European Masters and the German Masters and among many things, the Belgian Women’s Open.
But first, there are some amateur players to be made professionals.
The World Snooker Federation are back with a set of amateur tournaments! They came up with their first tournament back in 2018, with Luo Honghao becoming the inaugural champion in Malta. He received a new two-year card, as well as the losing finalist of that tournament, Adam Stefanów.
The body itself have a lot to prove. 2019 WSF Championships was cancelled last February because of a scheduling crisis where it moved from the United Arab Emirates at such late notice to China for the event to be completely withdrawn altogether. Interestingly, they are back with an additional event – the WSF Junior Open. This event is for players aged 17 and under and with a two-year tour card up for grabs, we could have a very hot prospect become professional for the first time!
Format & Draw
The draw has already been released last month. with 55 players participating in Malta. These players are divided in eleven groups. The draw can be found by clicking here. It will start between 4-9 January 2020.
Also, the event information has been published very recently. This is how the event will all work out, straight from the World Snooker Federation Website. The event information can be found by clicking here.
- All group matches will be the best of 5 frames.
- The top three players in each group will progress to the knockout rounds
- All knockout rounds up to and including the last 16 will be the best of 5 frames
- The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be the best of 7 frames.
- The final will be the best of 9 frames.
The Players
If you’ve been reading my blog long enough, you might’ve read my article last year on the most promising snooker talents. Many player I mentioned in the article are featured in the 2020 WSF Junior Open!
They include:
- 2019 World Cup quarter-finalist: Ben Mertens
- 2018 English Under-14 Champion and 2019 English Under-16 Champion: Paul Deaville
- Youngest player to make a competitive maximum 147 break: Sean Maddocks
- 2019 Paul Hunter Classic qualifier: Iulian Boiko
- Reached the Last 16 of the 2019 Snooker Shoot-Out: Ryan Davies
Northern Irishman Robbie Mcguigan, Dylan Smith and Welshman Liam Davies who I mentioned previously are among the hunt for the title too! If you would like to read about them in full detail, please click here.
So who else is in the fray?
Well, the duo you might recognise are Hungarian Bulcsú Révész and Pole Antoni Kowalski. The reason why you might is because both players met last year in the IBSF World Under-16 Boys final in August last year. Kowalski beat the Hungarian 4-2 in the final in Tyumen, Russia.
We also cannot rule out Scotland’s Dean Young. Young is currently participating in The Challenge Tour and won Event 6, beating former professionals Sean O’Sullivan, Ashley Hugill and Andrew Pagett as well as Mertens to the title.The last few I will mention who are in the event is 2019 EBSA European Under-18 Snooker Champion Irishman Aaron Hill, who beat Dylan Emery 4-3.
Someone else who could be the cat amongst the pigeons is Chinaman Wu Yize. As a wildcard, he featured in the 2019 Shanghai Masters and lost 6-1 to Jack Lisowski. He led John Higgins 2019 International Championship, but lost 6-5 and reached the knockout rounds of the 2019 Six-red World Championships. Higgins later described Wu as “a fabulous player.” Wu is also the 2018 IBSF World Under-21 Men Snooker Champion. Mental.
This shows that there is a lot of talent there. Because the matches are much shorter, we could see a lot of surprising results here. The favourites cannot take this tournament for granted. I also want to say that one particular player in Group F has a phenomenal name. Thor Van De Voorde-van Bocxlaer. Wow.
The WSF Junior Open will take place in Malta between 4-9 January 2020. The WSF Open will commence at 10-17 January and I will be writing a preview on that in due course.
Really strange one this as the WSF events used to be restricted to Federations that are members of the WSF and for nominated players only. These events are open to anyone so why did they have nominations?
Good question.