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2016 Paul Hunter Classic
The 2016 Paul Hunter Classic was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 24 and 28 August 2016 at the Stadthalle in Fürth, Germany. It was the fourth ranking event of the 2016/2017 season. Named in honour of former professional snooker player Paul Hunter, this was the first time for which the event was a ranking tournament, having previously been a minor-ranking event of the Players Tour Championship. It was also the first of the two ranking events of the season, along with the Gibraltar Open (also a former European Tour event), which would be open to amateurs and would form the new Amateur Order of Merit. Ali Carter was the defending champion, but he was defeated 3–4 by Yan Bingtao in the last 32. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh made the 119th official maximum break in the second frame of his last 32 match against Kurt Maflin. It was Un-Nooh's first professional maximum break, having missed the final black on two occasions the previous season. Mark Sel ...
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Paul Hunter Classic
The Paul Hunter Classic is a non-ranking snooker tournament. It changed from a ranking event to a 16-man invitational event in 2019. From 2010 to 2015 it was part of the Players Tour Championship. Barry Hawkins is the reigning champion. After losing its ranking event status, independent promoter Snookerstars.de promoted the 2019 event. History The tournament started in 2004 as the Grand Prix Fürth and was staged in Fürth, Germany. After two years as the Fürth German Open, it was renamed the Paul Hunter Classic in 2007 in memory of the late player Paul Hunter. In 2010 it became part of the Players Tour Championship. There have been six official maximum breaks in the history of the tournament. The first was made by Ronnie O'Sullivan in 2011 against Adam Duffy. The second was compiled by Ken Doherty in 2012 against Julian Treiber. This was Doherty's first 147. The third was made in 2014 by Aditya Mehta against Stephen Maguire. Mehta became the first Indian player to compile a ...
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Players Tour Championship
The Players Tour Championship was a series of snooker tournaments comprising some minor-ranking events played in Europe, and an Asian leg comprising some minor-ranking events in Asia. The series concluded with a Grand Final, where qualification was based on performance in the other PTC events, and had the status of a full ranking tournament. Each regular event lasted for at least three days, with qualifying days for amateurs should the event be oversubscribed. Each event costs £100 to enter, and Main Tour players can gain ranking points in the events. History The inaugural series ran from late June, with six events at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield, one in Gloucester and another five in mainland Europe (with 3 in Germany). The finals took place in March featuring the best 24 players who had won the most money and played at least 6 events; 3 in Sheffield and 3 in mainland Europe. The prize money at each event was £50,000 or €50,000 at the regular events, with a to ...
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Liam Highfield
Liam Highfield (born 1 December 1990) is an English professional snooker player. He turned professional in 2010 after finishing second in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. He plays left-handed. Career Amateur years In the 2007/2008 season, Highfield won the last event of International Open Series, and finished 12th in the rankings. The following season he finished as number 33. In the 2009/2010 season, he won the second event and was runner-up in the first and sixth event of the International Open Series and finished second in the rankings. Thus, Highfield received a place on the 2010/2011 professional Main Tour. 2011/2012 season At the beginning of this season, Highfield was ranked number 68 in the world, meaning he was required to win four qualifying matches to reach the main stage of the ranking events. He did not manage this throughout the season, coming closest in the first event of the year, the Australian Goldfields Open. He beat Simon Bedford and Xiao Guodong both by deci ...
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Luca Brecel
Luca Brecel (born 8 March 1995) is a Belgian professional snooker player. He won the European Under-19 title at the age of 14 and went on to break Stephen Hendry's record as the youngest player ever to compete at the Crucible Theatre. He made his debut at the 2012 World Championship aged 17 years and 45 days, almost two months younger than Hendry in 1986. In 2017, Brecel became the first player from mainland Europe to win a ranking event when he defeated Shaun Murphy in the final of the China Championship. He reached his first Triple Crown final at the 2021 UK Championship, but lost 5–10 to Zhao Xintong. He claimed his second ranking title a week later, defeating John Higgins 9–5 to win the 2021 Scottish Open. Amateur career Brecel started playing snooker when he was nine, and scored his first competitive century break at 12. In April 2009, he became the youngest European Under-19 champion at 14 years of age in a victory against Michael Wasley in Saint Petersburg. In th ...
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Ricky Walden
Ricky Walden (born 11 November 1982) is an English professional snooker player from Chester. Walden turned professional in 2000 and it took him eight years to win his first ranking title at the Shanghai Masters. He has since won the 2012 Wuxi Classic and the 2014 International Championship and has been inside the top 16 in the season-ending rankings on four occasions. A former world Top 6 player, Walden has reached the televised stages of the World Snooker Championship on eight occasions as of 2021, with his best result being a semi-finalist in 2013. Early years Walden was born in Chester but raised in Bagillt, North Wales, where he now lives once more, having spent some time living elsewhere in Flintshire. He was one of the Young Players of Distinction in a scheme run in 2000, designed to help young players develop their playing and media skills, alongside Shaun Murphy, Stephen Maguire and Ali Carter. In 2001 he won the World Under-21 Championship. Career 1999–2011 Walde ...
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Josh Boileau
Josh Boileau (born 2 July 1995 in Newbridge, County Kildare) is a former Irish professional snooker player. He is the 2016 Under-21 European Snooker Champion. Career In 2014 Boileau entered the EBSA European Under-21 Snooker Championships in Bucharest where he reached the final, before he lost 6–1 Oliver Lines. Two years following his disappointment in Bucharest, Boileau once again made it to the final where he defeated Brandon Sargeant 6–1 to win the 2016 EBSA European Under-21 Snooker Championship, as a result he was given a two-year card on the professional World Snooker Tour for the 2016–17 and 2017–18 seasons. His first win at the venue stage of a ranking event was at the Northern Ireland Open when he edged past Mike Dunn 4–3. Boileau then saw off Hamza Akbar 4–2, before losing 4–1 to Kurt Maflin. He overcame Hammad Miah Hammad Miah ( bn, হাম্মাদ মিঞা; born 6 July 1993) is a British professional snooker player of Banglades ...
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Anthony Hamilton (snooker Player)
Anthony Stephen Hamilton (born 29 June 1971) is an English professional snooker player. He has spent five seasons ranked among the game's elite Top 16 and fifteen in the Top 32, reaching a career-high of number ten in the world in the 1999/2000 season. Hamilton is a four-time World Championship quarter-finalist, a Masters semi-finalist and compiler of more than 300 competitive century breaks during his long career. He won his first ranking title in 2017, beating Ali Carter 9–6 in the final of the German Masters, doing so at the age of 45. Career 1991–2000 Hamilton turned professional in 1991, entering the world's top 32 in 1995/1996. Hamilton has reached two ranking tournament finals. In the British Open in 1999, where he lost to Fergal O'Brien, Hamilton opened with two centuries, but O'Brien won five frames on the final black to defeat the Nottingham man. The other was the 2001 China Open. Mark Williams beat him 9–8, despite Hamilton having led 8–5. He made the f ...
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Zhou Yuelong
Zhou Yuelong (; born 24 January 1998) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He has been runner-up at three ranking events, the January 2020 European Masters, the 2020 Snooker Shoot Out, and the 2022 Northern Ireland Open. Career Between 2011 and 2014, Zhou was regularly selected to play in the wildcard round of Chinese ranking events. He could only win two of the nine he played in and was knocked out in the first round in both of those. Zhou won the 2013 IBSF World Snooker Championship which enabled him to join the snooker tour for the 2014–15 season. 2014/2015 season Zhou turned pro in 2014. His first win as a professional came at attempt number one as he defeated Alfie Burden 5–3 to qualify for the 2014 Wuxi Classic, where he lost 5–3 to Graeme Dott in the first round. Zhou defeated compatriot Liang Wenbo 6–2 to qualify for the International Championship and won his first ever match at a ranking event by eliminating Chris Melling 6–1, before being edged o ...
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BBC Sport
BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flagship analysis programmes such as '' Match of the Day'', '' Test Match Special'', '' Ski Sunday'', '' Today at Wimbledon'' and previously ''Grandstand''. Results, analysis and coverage is also added to the BBC Sport website and through the BBC Red Button interactive television service. History The BBC has broadcast sport for several decades under individual programme names and coverage titles. ''Grandstand'' was one of the more notable sport programmes, broadcasting sport for almost 50 years. The BBC first began to brand sport coverage as 'BBC Sport' in 1988 for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, by introducing the programme with a short animation of a globe circumnavigated by four coloured rings. This practice continued througho ...
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Kurt Maflin
Kurt Graham Maflin (born 8 August 1983) is an English-Norwegian former professional snooker player. A strong break-builder, Maflin has compiled more than 200 century breaks during his career and has made two 147 breaks in professional competition. Career Early career Maflin began playing snooker at the age of four, achieving a high break of 25 by the time he was five. He increased his time spent at the table practising. As a rated top junior player, Maflin represented England in the 1999 Home International series in Prestatyn, North Wales, where England were victorious. After appearing in the Finals of the English National Championships in the Under-13 and Under-15 categories, he went on to become the first person to retain the English Under-17 national title (once held by Paul Hunter) in 2000 after winning it for the first time in 1999. When aged 14, Maflin was invited, on behalf of ''TV Times'' magazine, to team up with former World Champion Dennis Taylor to raise money fo ...
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Maximum Break
A maximum break (also known as a maximum, a 147, or orally, a one-four-seven) is the highest possible in a single of snooker. A player compiles a maximum break by potting all 15 with 15 for 120 points, followed by all six for a further 27 points. Compiling a maximum break is regarded as a particularly significant achievement in the game of snooker, and may be compared to a nine-dart finish in darts or a 300 game in ten-pin bowling. The first officially recognised maximum break was made by Joe Davis in a 1955 exhibition match in London. At the Classic in January 1982, Steve Davis achieved the first recognised maximum in professional competition, which was also the first maximum to occur during a televised match. The following year, Cliff Thorburn became the first player to make a maximum at the World Snooker Championship. At the UK Championship in December 2013, Mark Selby compiled the 100th recognised maximum break in professional competition. Ronnie O'Sullivan hol ...
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Yan Bingtao
Yan Bingtao (, born 16 February 2000) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the youngest player to win the Amateur World Snooker Championship after defeating Muhammad Sajjad 8–7. Having qualified to compete on the main tour for the 2015–16 season, Yan was unable to obtain a UK Visa, and decided to dedicate the year to completing his education in China. He resumed his career in 2016. He became the youngest-ever ranking event finalist at the 2017 Northern Ireland Open. Mark Williams won the match 9–8. Early in the 2019–20 season, Yan won his first ranking title in the Riga Masters at the age of 19. He became the third Chinese player to win a ranking title (after Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo). He won his first Triple Crown event at the 2021 Masters, winning in deciding frames in every match up until the final, where he defeated John Higgins 10–8, coming back from 3–5 and 5–7 behind. In December 2022, Yan and several other Chinese players were suspe ...
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