The Cue Sports Portal
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions. Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.
There are three major subdivisions of games within cue sports:
- Carom billiards, played on tables without pockets, typically ten feet in length, including straight rail, balkline, one-cushion carom, three-cushion billiards, artistic billiards, and four-ball
- Pocket billiards (or pool), played on six-pocket tables of seven, eight, nine, or ten-foot length, including among others eight-ball (the world's most widely played cue sport), nine-ball (the dominant professional game), ten-ball, straight pool (the formerly dominant pro game), one-pocket, and bank pool
- Snooker, English billiards, and Russian pyramid, played on a large, six-pocket table (dimensions just under 12 ft by 6 ft), all of which are classified separately from pool based on distinct development histories, player culture, rules, and terminology.
Billiards has a long history from its inception in the 15th century, with many mentions in the works of Shakespeare, including the line "let's to billiards" in Antony and Cleopatra (1606–07). Enthusiasts of the sport have included Mozart, Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette, Immanuel Kant, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Washington, Jules Grévy, Charles Dickens, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, W. C. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason. (Full article...)
Featured articles -
Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
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The 2014 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2014 Dafabet World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 19 April to 5 May 2014 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 38th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible. The tournament was also the last ranking event of the 2013–14 snooker season. The event was sponsored by Dafabet for the first time. A qualifying tournament was held from 8 to 16 April 2014 at the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield for 16 players, who met 16 seeded participants at the main championships.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having won the previous year's event by defeating Barry Hawkins in the final. Mark Selby won the 2014 event to capture his first world title by defeating O'Sullivan 18–14 in the final. This was Selby's fourth ranking title, also completing the Triple Crown of World Championship, UK Championship, and Masters titles. Neil Robertson compiled the highest break of the tournament, a 140, and scored his 100th century break of the season in his quarter-final win over Judd Trump. The event featured a prize fund of £1,214,000, the winner receiving £300,000. (Full article...) -
The 2017 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2017 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 April to 1 May 2017 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 19th and final ranking event of the 2016–17 season which followed the China Open. It was the 41st consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship had been held at the Crucible.
The winner of the event was the defending champion and world number one Mark Selby, who defeated John Higgins 18–15 in the final. Selby won despite having fallen 4–10 behind in the second session of the match. Selby defeated Ding Junhui 17–15 in the semi-finals whilst Higgins defeated Barry Hawkins 17–8 to reach the final. This was Selby's third World Championship win; he had also won the tournament in the 2014 and 2016 tournaments. (Full article...) -
The 2020 Tour Championship (officially the 2020 Coral Tour Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 20 to 26 June 2020, at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, England. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the second edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the second season of the Coral Cup. It was the 16th and penultimate ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season following the Gibraltar Open and preceding the World Championship. The tournament was originally scheduled for 17 to 22 March 2020, but on the morning of 17 March the event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following advice from the UK government, it had been decided that no spectators would be permitted at the event.
The draw for the Tour Championship comprised the top eight players based on the single year ranking list. The event was contested as a single-elimination tournament, with each match played over a minimum of two sessions and the final being a best-of-19-frames match. The winner of the tournament won £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £380,000. The event was sponsored by betting company Coral. (Full article...) -
The 1989 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 April to 1 May 1989 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, it was the eighth and final ranking event of the 1988–89 snooker season and the thirteenth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament at this location having taken place in 1977. There were 142 entrants to the competition.
The defending champion was Steve Davis, who had previously won the World Championship five times. He met John Parrott in the final, which was a best-of-35-frames match. Davis won the match 18–3, which remains the biggest winning margin in the sport's modern era, and meant that the final, scheduled for four sessions, finished with a session to spare. This was Davis's sixth and last world title, and his last appearance in a World Championship final. Stephen Hendry scored the championship's highest break, a 141, in his quarter-final match. There were 19 century breaks compiled during the championship. (Full article...) -
The 2019 WPA World Ten-ball Championship was a professional pool tournament for the discipline of ten-ball organised by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) and CueSports International. It was the fifth WPA World Ten-ball Championship; the previous championship was held in 2015. After plans for an event in both 2016 and 2018 to be held in Manila fell through, a 2019 event at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas as part of a three-year deal for the event to be played in the United States was agreed. The event was held concurrently with the Billiard Congress of America's National Ten-ball event from July 22 to 26. The event was sponsored by cue manufacturer Predator Group.
The competition featured 64 participants, selected according to world and continental pool rankings as well as qualifying events. The tournament was played as a double-elimination bracket until 16 players remained, at which point it changed to a single-elimination format. Ko Ping-chung, representing Chinese Taipei, won the event, defeating German player Joshua Filler 10–7 in the final. Ko's brother Ko Pin-yi, who was the defending champion, lost to Filler 10–8 in the semi-final. The event featured a prize fund of $132,000, the winner receiving $30,000. (Full article...) -
The 2021 Tour Championship (officially the 2021 Cazoo Tour Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 22 to 28 March 2021 at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, it was the third edition of the Tour Championship and the third and final event of the third season of the Cazoo Cup. It was the 14th and penultimate ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season, following the conclusion of the WST Pro Series and preceding the World Championship.
The draw for the Tour Championship comprised the top eight players based on the single year ranking list. The event was contested as a single-elimination tournament, each match being played over two sessions. The winner of the tournament received £150,000 out of a total prize fund of £380,000. The event was sponsored by car retailer Cazoo. The defending champion was Stephen Maguire, but as a result of reduced earnings during the season he was unable to qualify and defend the title. In a repeat of the 2019 final Australian Neil Robertson played Englishman Ronnie O'Sullivan. Robertson won the event defeating O'Sullivan 10–4 in the final. There were 26 century breaks made during the event, Barry Hawkins making the highest break, a 138. (Full article...) -
The 1987 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1987 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 18 April and 4 May 1987 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the sixth and final ranking event of the 1986–87 snooker season. The championship was the 1987 edition of the World Snooker Championship, first held in 1927, and had 32 participants. The highest ranked 16 players were awarded a place in the first round draw, whilst a pre-tournament qualification event for 104 professionals was held between 26 March and 4 April at the Preston Guild Hall for the remaining places. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy and had a prize fund of £400,000 with the winner receiving £80,000.
Since his 1986 victory, Joe Johnson had experienced a disappointing season leading up to the 1987 Championship, and bookmakers considered it unlikely that he would retain the title. Johnson did reach the final, a rematch of the previous year's final against Steve Davis. Davis won his fourth championship by defeating Johnson 18 frames to 14. A total of 18 century breaks were made during the tournament, the highest of which was 127 made by Davis in first frame of the final. Stephen Hendry, aged 18, became the youngest player to win a match in the tournament's history since it moved to the Crucible in 1977, whilst it was the last time that six-times champion Ray Reardon appeared. (Full article...) -
The 2020 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2020 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 31 July to 16 August 2020 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 44th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible. The final ranking event of the 2019–20 snooker season, the tournament was originally scheduled to take place from 18 April to 4 May 2020, but both the qualifying stage and the main rounds were postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was one of the first to allow live audiences since the onset of the pandemic, but on the first day it was announced that the event would be played behind closed doors for subsequent days. A limited number of spectators were allowed in for the final two days of the championship.
The tournament was organised by the World Snooker Tour, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and was broadcast by the BBC, Eurosport and Matchroom Sport. The event had a total prize fund of £2,395,000, with the winner receiving £500,000. Qualifying for the tournament was due to be held between 8 and 15 April 2020 but instead took place from 21 to 28 July at the English Institute of Sport, Sheffield. There were 128 participants in the qualifying rounds, with a mix of professional and invited amateur players, 16 of whom reached the main stage of the tournament where they played the top 16 players in the snooker world rankings. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred. (Full article...) -
The 1984 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1984 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purpose of sponsorship) was a ranking professional snooker tournament that took place between 21 April and 7 May 1984 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. The event was organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, and was the eighth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible since the 1977 event. The event featured 94 participants, of which 78 players competed in a qualifying event held at the Redwood Lodge in Bristol from 1 to 13 April. Of these, 16 players qualified for the main stage in Sheffield, where they met 16 invited seeds. The total prize fund for the event was £200,000, the highest total pool for any snooker tournament at that time; the winner received £44,000.
The defending champion was English player Steve Davis, who had won the title twice previously. He met fellow-countryman Jimmy White in the final, which was played as a best-of-35-frames match. Davis took a significant lead of 12–4 after the first two sessions; although White battled back into the match, Davis eventually won 18–16, becoming the first player to retain the title at the Crucible. Rex Williams secured the championship's highest break, scoring a 138 in the 12th frame of his first-round loss to White. Eight century breaks were made during the competition, the fewest since the 1978 event. The tournament was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy, and broadcast by BBC. (Full article...) -
The 2021 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2021 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 17 April to 3 May 2021 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the 45th consecutive year the World Snooker Championship was held at the Crucible Theatre and the 15th and final ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season. It was organised by the World Snooker Tour. The event was sponsored by sports betting company Betfred and broadcast by the BBC, Eurosport and Matchroom Sport. It featured a total prize fund of £2,395,000 of which the winner received £500,000.
Qualifying for the tournament took place between 5 and 14 April 2021 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. There were 128 participants in the qualifying rounds, consisting of a mix of professional and invited amateur players. The main stage of the tournament featured 32 players: the top 16 players from the snooker world rankings and an additional 16 players from the qualifying rounds. Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having won his sixth world title at the previous year's event, where he defeated Kyren Wilson 18–8 in the final. O'Sullivan lost in the second round to Anthony McGill 12–13. Mark Selby defeated Shaun Murphy 18–15 in the final to win his fourth world title and the 20th ranking title of his career. There were a record 108 century breaks made at the Crucible, with an additional 106 made in qualifying rounds. The tournament's highest break was 144 by Murphy in the second round. (Full article...)
Selected articles -
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Rudolf Walter Wanderone (né Rudolf Walter Wanderon Jr.; January 19, 1913 – January 15, 1996), commonly known as Minnesota Fats, was an American professional pool player. Although he never won a major pool tournament as "Fats", he was at one time perhaps the most publicly recognized pool player in the United States—not only as a player, but also as an entertainer. Wanderone was inducted in 1984 into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame for his decades-long public promotion of pool.
Wanderone began playing at a young age in New York City. As a teenager, he became a traveling pool hustler. Later, in his thirties, he moved to Du Quoin, Illinois, where he met and married his first wife, Evelyn. She was a waitress at a steakhouse, The Perfection Club. They married two months after they met. During World War II, he hustled servicemen in Norfolk, Virginia. With the end of the war, Wanderone returned to Illinois and entered semi-retirement.
Wanderone, who was sometimes known by the nickname "New York Fats" in his role as a pool player, adopted the name "Minnesota Fats" from the character of that name in the 1961 film The Hustler, claiming that the character, played by Jackie Gleason, was based upon him. (Full article...) -
William Joseph Mosconi (/mɒˈskoʊni/; June 27, 1913 – September 17, 1993) was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the World Straight Pool Championship nineteen times. For most of the 20th century, his name was essentially synonymous with pool in North America – he was nicknamed "Mr. Pocket Billiards" – and he was among the first Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame inductees. Mosconi pioneered and regularly employed numerous trick shots, set many records, and helped to popularize pool as a national recreation activity.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the pocket billiards game most often played in competition was called straight pool, or 14.1 continuous, a form of pool considered by most top players to be more difficult than today's fast tournament game nine-ball. Mosconi set the officially-recognized straight pool high run world record of 526 consecutive balls in 1954. (Full article...) -
Karen Corr (born 10 November 1969) is a Northern Irish professional pool and former snooker and English billiards player. She began entering women's snooker tournaments at age 15 and went on to win the World Women's Snooker Championship three times and the World Women's Billiards Championship twice. In 1998, she moved to the United States to play pool professionally. She has won numerous tournaments and has been ranked number one on the WPBA Tour. She was inducted into the BCA Hall of Fame in 2012. (Full article...) -
Jack Lisowski (born 25 June 1991) is an English professional snooker player from Churchdown, Gloucestershire. He turned professional in 2010 by finishing first in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. A left-handed player, he is known for his attacking style of play.
Lisowski has reached six ranking finals but has been runner-up each time, losing three finals to Judd Trump, two to Neil Robertson and one to Mark Selby. He has made one maximum break in professional competition. (Full article...) -
Gerda Hofstätter Gergerson (born 9 February 1971), nicknamed "G-Force", is an Austrian professional pool player. Hofstätter won the WPA World Nine-ball Championship in 1995. She is a winner at the European Pool Championship on nine occasions, and won the Austrian national Championship seventeen times. Hofstätter is a two-time Hall of Fame inductee being voted into both the Women's Professional Billiard Association and Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fames in the Greatest Players Category. Hofstätter was the Austrian Sportswoman of the Year for Carinthia in 1993. Hofstätter played on the WPBA Tour until her retirement, doing so from 1993 onward. (Full article...)
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Frank Taberski (1889–1941) was a professional pocket billiards player from Schenectady, New York. Nicknamed "The Gray Fox," he won 14 world titles. (Full article...)
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A player shooting a kick shot
The English-originating version of eight-ball pool, also known as English pool, English eight-ball, blackball, or simply reds and yellows, is a pool game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen usually unnumbered object balls) on a small pool table with six pockets. It originated in the United Kingdom and is played in the Commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa. In the UK and Ireland it is usually called simply "pool".
The English version of eight-ball has two main sets of playing rules used in professional play; those of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), known as "blackball rules", and the code of the World Eightball Pool Federation (WEPF), known as "international rules". (Full article...) -
Jayson Shaw (born 13 September 1988 in Glasgow) is a Scottish professional pool player. In 2010, Shaw was a WPA World Blackball Champion. Shaw has won the Mosconi Cup seven times whilst representing Team Europe. (Full article...)
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Anthony McGill (born 5 February 1991) is a Scottish professional snooker player. He is a practice partner of retired snooker player Alan McManus.
McGill turned professional in 2010, after finishing fourth in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. He won the 2016 Indian Open, after having previously never been beyond the quarter-final stage of a ranking event. (Full article...) -
European Pool Championship (also called Dynamic European Championships) is a pool competition organized by the European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF). The tournament is held annually since 1980. It should not be confused with the series of smaller events known as the Euro Tour, also run by the EPBF.
Current disciplines include 8-ball, 9-Ball, 10-Ball, Straight pool, and team events), and for different age and ability ranges, with events for men, women, juniors and wheelchair players. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the 1947 World Snooker Championship was the first world snooker championship where the winner wasn't Joe Davis?
- ... that Kyren Wilson won the first four frames in all of his snooker matches at the 2023 Tour Championship?
- ... that Turkish carom billiards champion Güzin Müjde Karakaşlı grew up playing volleyball for about 12 years?
- ... that a snooker table used at the 2022 Turkish Masters was fixed with a car jack?
- ... that at the 1978 World Snooker Championship, Fred Davis reached the semi-finals at the age of 64?
- ... that the final of the 2009 IBSF women's snooker championship was interrupted so that drug tests could be conducted on the players?
- ... that Gary Wilson threw his snooker cue to the floor in anger at the 2022 UK Championship?
- ... that John Spencer won a World Snooker Championship on his first attempt in 1969?
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Good articles -
These are Good articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan OBE (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in snooker history, he has won the World Snooker Championship seven times, a modern-era record he holds jointly with Stephen Hendry. He has also won a record eight Masters titles and a record eight UK Championship titles for a total of 23 Triple Crown titles, the most achieved by any player. He holds the record for the most ranking titles, with 41, and has held the top ranking position multiple times.
After winning amateur titles including the IBSF World Under-21 Snooker Championship, O'Sullivan turned professional in 1992, aged 16. He won his first ranking event at the 1993 UK Championship aged 17 years and 358 days; he remains the youngest player to win a ranking title. He is also the youngest player to win the Masters, having claimed his first title in 1995, aged 19 years and 69 days. Now also noted for his longevity in the sport, he is the oldest winner of all three Triple Crown events, having won his seventh world title in 2022, aged 46 years and 148 days; his eighth UK Championship title in 2023, aged 47 years and 363 days; and his eighth Masters title in 2024, aged 48 years and 40 days. As of 2024, he has made a record 32 appearances in the final stages of the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible, surpassing the previous record of 30 appearances set by Steve Davis. (Full article...) -
The 2017 Masters (officially the 2017 Dafabet Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 15 to 22 January 2017 at Alexandra Palace in London, England. It was the 43rd staging of the Masters and the second Triple Crown event of the 2016/17 snooker season, following the 2016 UK Championship and preceding the 2017 World Snooker Championship.
Ronnie O'Sullivan was the defending champion, having defeated Barry Hawkins 10–1 in the final of the 2016 event. O'Sullivan reached a record-extending 12th Masters final and successfully defended his title, defeating Joe Perry 10–7 to win the tournament for a record seventh time, surpassing the six titles won by Stephen Hendry. This was the first successful title defence at the Masters since Paul Hunter in 2002. Marco Fu compiled the highest break of the tournament, scoring a 141 in his semi-final match against O'Sullivan. (Full article...) -
The 2009 World Cup of Pool (also known as the 2009 PartyPoker World Cup of Pool due to sponsorship) was a professional nine-ball pool, and the fourth World Cup of Pool, a scotch doubles knockout championship representing 32 national teams. The cup was played at the Annex of SM City North EDSA in Quezon City, Philippines from 1 to 6 September 2009. The Korean pair of Ga Young Kim and Yun Mi Lim were the first all-female team to participate at the event. The tournament featured a prize fund of $250,000 with the winner receiving $60,000. It was sponsored by online poker website partypoker.
The defending champions were Rodney Morris and Shane Van Boening representing the US, who had won the 2008 event 11–7 over the English team of Daryl Peach and Mark Gray in the final. The USA team were defeated in the quarter-finals by the Chinese pair of Fu Jian-bo and Li He-wen 5–9. The event was won by the Filipino team of Francisco Bustamante and Efren Reyes, who defeated the Germans Ralf Souquet and Thorsten Hohmann in the 2009 final 11–9. The event was organised and later broadcast by Matchroom Sport worldwide, and locally live on Solar Sports and CS9. (Full article...) -
Herbert John Pulman (12 December 1923 – 25 December 1998) was an English professional snooker player who was the World Snooker Champion from 1957 to 1968. He first won the title at the 1957 Championship and retained it across seven challenges from 1964 to 1968, three of them against Fred Davis and two against Rex Williams. When the tournament reverted to a knockout event in 1969, he lost 18–25 in the first round to the eventual champion John Spencer. After finishing as runner-up to Ray Reardon in 1970, Pulman never again reached the final, although he was a losing semi-finalist in 1977.
He turned professional in 1946, shortly after winning the English Amateur Championship, and achieved three News of the World Snooker Tournament titles, in 1954, 1957 and 1958. An emotional player, he was prone to venting his frustration and missing important shots. He generally played attacking snooker in his early career, but he made more use of safety tactics in the 1970s. (Full article...) -
The 1934 World Snooker Championship, known at the time as the Professional Championship of Snooker, was a snooker tournament held partly at the Lounge Hall in Nottingham and then at the Central Hall in Kettering, from 2 to 6 April 1934. Joe Davis won the title for the eighth time by defeating Tom Newman, the only other entrant, by 25 frames to 22. At one stage Newman led 14–13, but Davis then pulled ahead to lead 24–18 and, although Newman won the next four frames, Davis took the 47th frame to secure the title. Davis compiled a break of 70 in the third frame. (Full article...)
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Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick, players must strike the white cue ball to pocket nine colored billiard balls, hitting them in ascending numerical order. An individual game (or rack) is won by the player pocketing the 9 ball. Matches are usually played as a race to a set number of racks, with the player who reaches the set number winning the match.
The game is currently governed by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), with multiple regional tours. The most prestigious nine-ball tournaments are the WPA World Nine-ball Championship and the U.S. Open Nine-ball Championships. Notable 9-Ball players in the game include Luther Lassiter, Buddy Hall, Efren Reyes, Earl Strickland and Shane Van Boening. The game is often associated with hustling and gambling, with tournaments often having a "buy-in" amount to become a participant. The sport has featured in popular culture, notably in the 1961 film The Hustler and its 1986 sequel The Color of Money. (Full article...) -
Ng On-yee BBS MH (Chinese: 吳安儀; born 17 November 1990) is a Hong Kong snooker player who has won three IBSF World Snooker Championships and three World Women's Snooker world championships. She held the number one position in the World Women's Snooker world ranking list from February 2018 to April 2019.
After competing in several International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) tournaments, Ng became the youngest-ever IBSF women's world champion at the age of 19 and successfully defended the title the following year. At the 2015 World Ladies Snooker Championship she defeated Reanne Evans—who had held the title for the previous ten years—in the semi-final and won the title. After losing the final of the same tournament to Evans the following year, Ng regained the title in 2017, defeating Evans 5–4 in the semi-final and overcoming Vidya Pillai 6–5 in the protracted final. In 2018, Ng won the title for a third time and in 2019 she collected her third IBSF World Title. (Full article...) -
The 2022 Masters (officially the 2022 Cazoo Masters) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 9 to 16 January 2022 at Alexandra Palace in London, England. It was the 48th staging of the Masters tournament, which was first held in 1975, and the second of three Triple Crown events in the 2021–22 snooker season, following the 2021 UK Championship and preceding the 2022 World Snooker Championship. Broadcast by the BBC and Eurosport in Europe, it was sponsored for the first time by car retailer Cazoo.
The participants were invited to the tournament based on the world rankings as they stood after the UK Championship. Some players took issue with the cut-off date, noting that the in-form Luca Brecel, who had entered the top 16 by winning the 2021 Scottish Open in December, did not qualify as the event took place after the UK Championship. Ding Junhui, who had made 15 consecutive Masters appearances between 2007 and 2021, fell out of the top 16 after the UK Championship and failed to qualify. Zhao Xintong, who entered the top 16 for the first time by winning the UK Championship, was the only Masters debutant. John Higgins set a new record of 28 Masters appearances, surpassing Jimmy White and Steve Davis, both of whom had competed 27 times. (Full article...) -
The 2021 Welsh Open (officially the 2021 BetVictor Welsh Open) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 to 21 February 2021 at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. It was the 10th ranking event of the 2020–21 snooker season and the 30th edition of the Welsh Open, first held in 1992. It was the fifth of six tournaments in the European Series and the fourth and final event of the Home Nations Series. The event was sponsored by sports betting company BetVictor, with the winner being awarded £70,000 from a total prize fund of £405,000.
Shaun Murphy was the defending champion, having won the 2020 event with a 9–1 victory over Kyren Wilson in the final. However, Murphy lost 5–4 to Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals. Jordan Brown defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 9–8 in the final to win the first ranking title of his career. Ranked 81st in the world, Brown became the lowest-ranked player to win a ranking event since world number 93 Dave Harold won the 1993 Asian Open. (Full article...) -
Michaela Tabb (born 11 December 1967) is a Scottish snooker and pool referee. She established significant milestones for female officials in professional cue sports, beginning in pool, where she officiated at top tournaments such as the WPA World Nine-ball Championship and the Mosconi Cup. She qualified in 2001 to referee on the World Snooker Tour and was the sport's highest profile female referee for the next 14 years. She became the first woman to officiate at a professional ranking snooker tournament at the 2002 Welsh Open, and the first woman to referee a ranking tournament final at the 2007 Welsh Open. She is the only woman to have refereed the World Snooker Championship final, which she did twice, in 2009 and 2012.
Tabb left the professional snooker tour in March 2015 following a dispute with the sport's commercial arm, World Snooker Ltd, against which she brought a case alleging sex discrimination, unfair dismissal, and breach of contract. The parties reached an out-of-court settlement in September 2015, under which World Snooker Ltd paid Tabb an undisclosed financial sum. She has continued to referee at pool events and on the World Seniors Tour. (Full article...)
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General images -
The following are images from various cue sports-related articles on Wikipedia.
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alt=Pink snooker ball (from Snooker) -
A set of standard carom billiard balls, comprising a red object ball, one plain white cue ball, and one dotted white cue ball (replaced in modern three-cushion billiards by a yellow ball) for the opponent (from Carom billiards) -
A full-size snooker table set up for a game (from Snooker) -
A massé shot around a pin (from Carom billiards) -
Historic print depicting Michael Phelan's Billiard Saloon located at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, 1 January 1859 (from Carom billiards) -
Illustration A: Aerial view of a snooker table with the twenty-two balls in their starting positions. The cue ball (white) may be placed anywhere in the semicircle (known as the "D") at the start of the game. (from Snooker) -
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alt=Yellow snooker ball (from Snooker) -
Jerome Keogh invented the game in 1910. (from Straight pool) -
A pool table diagram (from Pool (cue sports)) -
alt=Brown snooker ball (from Snooker) -
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alt=Black snooker ball (from Snooker) -
Louis XIV playing billiards (1694) (from Carom billiards) -
A close-up view of a cue tip about to strike the cue ball, the aim being to pot the red ball into a corner pocket (from Snooker) -
A player racking the balls (from Pool (cue sports)) -
A sliding scoreboard, some blocks of cue-tip chalk, white chalk-board chalk and two cues (from Snooker) -
The World Snooker Championship trophy (from Snooker) -
alt=Red snooker ball (from Snooker) -
Balkline table with standard markings (from Carom billiards) -
Cigarette card, c. 1911, showing George Sutton playing balkline (from Carom billiards) -
A complete set of snooker balls (from Snooker) -
The Family Remy by Januarius Zick, c. 1776, featuring billiards among other parlour activities (from Carom billiards) -
Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting Night Café at Arles includes a depiction of French billiards (from Carom billiards) -
alt=Blue snooker ball (from Snooker) -
alt=Green snooker ball (from Snooker)
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Major topics
| Pool games |  | |
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| Carom billiards | ||
| Snooker | ||
| Other games | ||
| Resources | ||
| Major international tournaments |
| |
| Other events | ||
| Governing bodies | ||
| Categories | ||
 Cue sports portalThe rules of games in italics are standardized by international sanctioning bodies. | ||
More topics
| Early events | |
|---|---|
| Match-play | |
| Challenges | |
| Knock-outs | |
| Crucible era | |
| Related articles | |
| Tournaments | |
|---|---|
| Related articles | |
Active professional snooker tournaments | |
|---|---|
| Ranking events |
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| Non-ranking events | |
| Seniors events |
|
| Tours and series | |
| Related lists | |
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