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Metro
4 hours ago
- Metro
Championship League Snooker: 10 things we learned from a month at the Mattioli
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? MORE: Stephen Hendry challenges snooker star to bounce back from 'disappointing' season MORE: Ronnie O'Sullivan outlines ambitious plan for after he retires from snooker MORE: Jordan Brown hit 'extreme low' and considered quitting snooker before making vital decision
Daily Mirror
6 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Matt Jones wants to be the Tony Hawk of mountain bike games so started his own publisher to do it
We go hands on with Red Bull athlete Matt Jones' new MTB video game, discovering how a professional sportsman turned video game developer. MAVRIX launches into early access on PC today to give mountain bike enthusiasts a faithful way to recreate trials, trails, and stunt challenges in a video game. If you've ever looked around at the video game landscape and wondered 'where are all the mountain bike games?', so too has professional Red Bull athlete and slopestyle rider Matt Jones. Having travelled the world competing in contests that have seen him test the limits of what stunts and tricks are even possible on a mountain bike, the sportsman and YouTube star is now intent on bringing this thrill to an all-new audience. The answer, he thinks, is MAVRIX, a dedicated MTB video game set in a picturesque open-world Wales designed to let players mimic bike riding more accurately than ever before. To make MAVRIX a reality Jones just had to do one small thing first: start his own publisher. 'Authenticity has been the core of our approach to building Cascade Interactive,' says Jones on his most recent creative (and possibly outlandish) business venture. Started after Jones became frustrated by the current lack of representation of extreme sports games in video games, the plan was to do it himself, alongside twin brother Jono and video game industry veteran Chris Lee. 'I'm friends with a lot of Red Bull athletes across almost all extreme sports, right? They've watched this journey and watched me announce MAVRIX, and they're very interested'. Before the likes of surfing, freeskiing, or possibly even soapbox derby racing receive their own game published by Cascade Interactive, however, the initial goal is to do justice by the sport that Jones knows and does best. From the hour-and-a-half preview I recently played, MAVRIX certainly has the potential to do the world of competitive mountain bike riding justice. Boasting 100 square kilometres of downhill racetracks, technical trails, and stunt challenges, I was surprised by how quickly cycling your way up to and taking on all these various opportunities quickly became second nature. A lot of this comes down to the unique control scheme MAVRIX implements. Rather than simply map acceleration to R2 like a lot of other racing games and call it a day, it was important for Jones to try and replicate the real act of MTB riding on controller as closely as possible. This means, similar to the handlebar setup on most man-powered bikes, R2 instead activates the front wheel's break while L2 operates the back. This frees up R1 for peddling. Not that you'll need it most of the time you're making your way to a destination, since it's easy to build natural momentum up incredibly quickly when going downhill. Tricks of the trade 'It came very quickly to me actually that that should be the control mechanic because I've spent the last 15 years just hanging on to handlebars,' Jones emphasises. Having tapped Virtuous subsidiary, Third Kind Games, to take on development duties under Cascade's direction, the team there got to work making this unusual control scheme feel practical and intuitive – and have continued to do so for the past 18 months. '[When] I announced that's what we should do with the brakes, everyone looked shocked. I couldn't believe it had been missed'. The idea is to set a new standard genre standard. 'There's only so many things you can do while riding a bike,' the Red Bull star continues. 'You can move your weight around, you can turn the handlebars, and pedal. We've got all those inputs taken care of with your fingers so there's no reason that everything you can do on a bike in real life shouldn't be possible with that controller in your hands'. Although Cascade is only publishing MAVRIX in early access and using a partner to develop, Jones' personal history and detailed knowledge of all things MTB riding Is what he and his two fellow company co-founders believe will give MAVRIX – and any other future titles – an edge. Playing MAVRIX myself, I can see how easy it'll be for biking enthusiasts and even those yet to ever ride a bike to get caught in the game's loop. The physics feel believable, the ability to switch from third- to first-person view instantly helps make taking on technical trails feel actually achievable, and always giving you reasons to keep getting better is the promise of acquiring new sponsorship deals (just like in real life) that earns you 'Moolah' that can then be used to buy better bikes, better gear, and more flashy cosmetics. Better yet, at least in its current early access version, there are no microtransactions in MAVRIX to speak of. Although slightly retooled to make way for MTB locations of interest, this version of rural Wales is also a beautiful one to explore and take in at your own pace. My build was absent of a lot of other rides, but I can imagine this softer mood changing massively when you start riding with your friends on a single server in the hopes of getting the best time on a trail or hitting a particular ramp the hardest. If there's one thing that's letting MAVRIX down right now, it's the absence of expected stunt manoeuvres as I catch a lot of air, such as a tailwhip. Jones and the team assure me after my play session that these extra, more detail-orientated aspects are sure to come as MAVRIX's community takes hold and starts providing feedback. The sentiment so far has been to nail the basics, which do make the bike feel good to handle. When I first sat down to play MAVRIX and speak with Matt Jones, the first thing I noticed about him was his beaming smile and undeniable enthusiasm for getting this into the hands of players. The prospect of a non-game developer aiming to revolutionise an entire genre is something I'd usually brisk at, but judging by Jones' infectious passion and record-breaking career in MTV riding so far, by the end of my session I'm left in a place where I believe that he just might do it. MAVRIX isn't the most polished or perfect racing game I've played, but that's par for the course with a PC only, early access release where it's clear there's so much room for this foundation to be built upon. A series of extreme sports games developed and powered by the knowledge and passion of people who are the best at them in the world? It's not a bad plan of attack for a brand-new publisher to make its core philosophy. 'Once we're done with MAVRIX, we're going to crack straight on with more games,' sums up Jones, still beaming. 'I'd love it that Cascade in the future just builds the best extreme sports games because we've got the knowledge, the team, and the tech to do so'.
North Wales Chronicle
6 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Emily Scarratt to become first England player to take part in five World Cups
The 35-year-old first appeared at the 2010 edition before being part of the side that was victorious in 2014 when England defeated Canada in the final. There is also a call-up for scrum-half Natasha Hunt, who was a surprise omission when the team finished as runners-up three years ago, while Zoe Aldcroft, who skippered England to a Women's Six Nations Grand Slam after inheriting the captaincy from Marlie Packer in January, will lead the side on home soil. Ready to represent. Your #RedRoses for #RWC2025! 🌹@O2 | #WearTheRose — Red Roses (@RedRosesRugby) July 24, 2025 Emma Sing will be among eight World Cup debutants after she stepped in for current World Rugby player of the year Ellie Kildunne for the decisive Six Nations win over France in April. Packer and Number 8 Alex Matthews are included and will each be participating in their fourth World Cup. 'The selection process is never easy,' said Mitchell, whose side begin their campaign against the United States in Sunderland on August 22. 'It's been a thorough two-year process to select the right blend of positional cover, skill, mindset and connection – we believe this is a squad that can win the World Cup. 'Every experience and challenge has brought the 32 to this point in their life and career, and they have all earned their place. 'They should be proud of the opportunity to create history together whilst knowing we have to earn the right to progress throughout the World Cup.'
