Championship League Snooker: 10 things we learned from a month at the Mattioli

Metro

2 days ago

Snooker's summer holiday in Leicester came to an end on Wednesday with Stephen Maguire lifting the trophy and bringing the epic Championship League to a close.
The tournament began on June 30 and the champion was crowned on July 23, meaning the event clocks in at a hefty 24 days.
It's a long old slog at the Mattioli Arena, with three group stages to deal with, leaving two players still standing to contest the final.
That's where Maguire beat Joe O'Connor and become the first title-winner of the 2025-26 season, pocking £33,000 for his troubles.
It's pretty low-key stuff at the Championship League, the winner himself admitted 'it's not the biggest tournament in the world' as he was crowned champion, but there was a huge amount of snooker played.
So what did we learn from the hours spent watching the action on YouTube?
Perhaps that there are better ways of spending a big chunk of your summer. But perhaps not. In fact, here are 10 things the Championship League demonstrated.
44 years old appears to be no age in snooker these days, but after a number of years of being far from his best, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to think that Maguire's title-winning days were over.
This is the first trophy he has lifted since the 2020 Tour Championship and after being a fixture in the top 16 for years, he has now become used to floating around in the 20s and 30s.
He's been working hard to get back to his best, though, and this shows there is still plenty of life in the former UK champion yet. He's got to be considered a genuine threat for titles again.
A third ranking final for Joe O'Connor produced a third runner-up finish, so he will be frustrated but should also be very pleased with his efforts.
The Leicester native won all nine of his games in the group stage and along with two victories in other qualifiers went on an 11-match winning run before defeat to Maguire.
Already considered a player on the rise, he looks ever more set fair to be challenging for a top 16 place, but he will want to shake the nearly-man tag ASAP.
There were encouraging performances from some of the younger players on tour, fighting back against the suggestion that there isn't new talent emerging.
Artemijs Zizins (19), Liam Davies (19) and Ben Mertens (20) all came through their first groups, with Mertens making it all the way to a second-place finish in stage three.
The sport's youngest professional, 14-year-old Michal Szubarcyck, may not have won a match, but a draw with the talented Fan Zhengyi showed that he is here to compete, while 16-year-old Lan Yuhao also caught the eye.
The Chinese influence on the professional game continues to grow, with Zhao Xintong now world champion, 28 players from the country on the World Snooker Tour and five in the top 16.
Those numbers may well continue to rise, but the Chinese players are not quite ready to take over the sport just yet. This was a good chance for the likes of Si Jiahui and Wu Yize to land a first ranking title but neither made the final stage.
Pang Junxu and Xu Si both did reach stage three but faltered, Xu unbelievably losing a frame to O'Connor when the Englishman needed four snookers. Improvement in these players is happening, but it is steady rather than spectacular.
When the top players in the women's game were awarded spots on the World Snooker Tour it was unsurprisingly a difficult start for them as they struggled to adapt to the elite standard, but that is changing.
Ng On Yee topped her first group, which was a tricky-looking one including Dan Wells, He Guoqiang and Leone Crowley. She became the first woman to reach the last 32 of a ranking event in the process.
Women's world champ Bai Yulu went unbeaten in her group and remains the standout female player. Along with Reanne Evans winning her qualifiers for the Wuhan Open and British Open it has been a good start to the season for the ladies.
Rob Milkins has work to do this season to stay on tour and the Championship League did not see much of that work achieved.
The popular 49-year-old has been a pro since 1995 but is provisionally ranked number 71 for the end of the season. Outside of the top 64 and it's likely that he will lose his professional status for the first time in 30 years.
He's still more than capable of winning the matches required to stay on tour, but the Championship League was another opportunity missed to do so as he finished third in his opening group.
Lads, come on now. Maguire will have spent plenty more on petrol getting to the tournament than the trophy he won cost.
We all know it's not a highlight of the calendar, but it does last an entire month, is a ranking event and the winner deserves a decent trinket.
There is very little hype at all about the Championship League, which is a shame because it is a decent tournament and could be bigger and better, but it needs to be portrayed as such.
There is endless chatter about the standard throughout the sport being much better than ever and the Championship League did illustrate that point.
Top seeds were dropping like flies in the first group stage as title-contenders like Shaun Murphy, Ali Carter and Barry Hawkins all fell at the first hurdle.
Meanwhile, players well down the rankings like Mertens, Amir Sarkosh, Yao Pengcheng and On Yee topped their groups. Alfie Burden, no longer even on the pro tour but playing as an amateur, topped his group which included Shaun Murphy. Especially in the brutal best-of-five format, no one is safe.
OK, this is not something we've learned, it's more of a question, but whatever.
The group format has its benefits, with every player getting three games, all of which are broadcast. However, when certain groups shake out as they do we get some pretty unappealing stuff as players are in matches they clearly don't care about. An early clash between James Cahill and Liam Graham was like this, with Cahill smashing the pack from the break and obviously not putting in every effort.
There was also the situation in the second group stage which saw Matt Selt needing to heavily beat Stuart Bingham in his final game to proceed, while Liam Davies needed Bingham to avoid that fate so he could progress. Ballrun could not win the group and although he played properly, the focus inevitably wasn't really there and he lost 3-0.
It's the pitfalls of group stages so it would take a big change in format to fix it, but it's a minor annoyance.
None of the world's top eight and only five of the top 16 entered the Championship League, which is a blow to its credibility.
Big names have skipped the tournament before, but this is a new level of snubbing from the elite.
It does show that the calendar is so well-stocked that players are happy to miss events, it also provides great opportunity for lesser lights, but there's no doubt that the Championship League is off the radar almost entirely for those at the top of the sport.
Maybe get a nicer trophy and they'll be back?
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