The 2022–23 Q Tour is a series of

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in Ind ...

tournaments to take place during the

2022–23 snooker season The 2022–23 snooker season is a professional snooker season with tournaments played between June 2022 and May 2023. Players The World Snooker Tour in the 2022–23 season initially consisted of a field of 131 professional players, but later ...

. The

Q Tour The Q Tour is a series of snooker tournaments, immediately below the level of the World Snooker Main Tour. The tour originally ran between the 1994–95 season and the 2004–05 season as professional non-ranking events. Due to the large numb ...

is the second-tier tour, run by the

World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards based in Bristol, England. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotion ...

, for players not on the main

World Snooker Tour The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...

. A series of six events were played with the leading money-winner gaining a place on the main tour for the 2023–24 snooker season. The 16 highest-ranked players who had not already got a place on the main tour for the 2023–24 season, gained entry to a further event, the WPBSA Q Tour Playoff, the winner of which also gets a place.

Martin O'Donnell Martin O'Donnell (born May 1, 1955) is an American composer known for his work on video game developer Bungie's series, such as ''Myth'', '' Oni'', ''Halo'', and ''Destiny''. O'Donnell collaborated with his musical colleague Michael Salvatori ...

won two of the six events to be the leading money-winner and gain a place on the tour. Ashley Carty won the playoff to gain the second place.

Format

Except for the playoff, events will be played over three days. The first day is an open qualifying day with 16 places available. The main draw starts on the second day when the 16 qualifiers are joined by the 48 seeded players who qualify based on their rankings in the 2021 Q School Order of Merit to make a first round field of 64 players. There are 3 rounds on the second day and a further three on the final day, to determine the winner of the event. The 48 who qualify directly include the top 32 eligible players from the 2022 UK Q School Order of Merit, the top eight from the 2022 Asia-Oceania Q School Order of Merit, and the eight highest ranked junior players not already qualified.

Prize fund

Each event features a prize fund of £12,000 with the winner receiving £2,500. * Winner: £2,500 * Runner-up: £1,200 * Semi-final: £750 * Quarter-final: £550 * Last 16: £275 * Last 32: £150 * Total: £12,000

Schedule

The schedule for the six regular events and the playoff is given below.

Rankings

Below are listed the leading players in the prize money rankings. Players on equal points were ranked by "countback", with the player having won the most prize money in the latest event played being ranked higher.

Event 1

The first event took place at North East Snooker Centre,

North Shields North Shields () is a town in the Borough of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. It is north-east of Newcastle upon Tyne and borders nearby Wallsend and Tynemouth. Since 1974, it has been in the North Tyneside borough of Tyne and Wea ...

, from 2 to 4 September 2022.

Ross Muir Ross Muir (born 6 October 1995 in Edinburgh) is a Scottish former professional snooker player. He regularly wears a glove on his bridge hand. Muir turned professional in 2013 after graduating from event two of the Q School, defeating David Mo ...

beat George Pragnell 5–2 in the final. Muir lost just five frames in the six rounds of the event. The final-day results are given below.

Event 2

The second event took place at Castle Snooker Club, Brighton, from 16 to 18 September 2022.

beat George Pragnell 5–1 in the final, having won his quarter and semi-final matches in the deciding frame. The final-day results are given below.

Event 3

The third event took place at the Delta Moon Club,

Mons Mons (; German and nl, Bergen, ; Walloon and pcd, Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. ...

, Belgium from 14 to 16 October 2022. Farakh Ajaib beat Harvey Chandler 5–3 in the final. Chandler took a 2–0 lead before Ajaib won the next four frames, with a 45 clearance in frame 6 after Chandler had made a break of 60. The final-day results are given below.

Event 4

The fourth event took place at the Snookerhallen Club, Stockholm, Sweden from 25 to 27 November 2022.

Billy Castle Billy Joe Castle (born 14 July 1992 in Marchwood, Hampshire) is an English professional snooker player. Career In May 2017, Castle came through Q-School by winning six matches to earn a two-year card on the World Snooker Tour for the 2017� ...

beat

Andrew Higginson Andrew Higginson (born 13 December 1977) is an English former professional snooker player from Widnes, Cheshire. He is best known for being the surprise finalist of the 2007 Welsh Open. Career Early years After some success in amateur tourn ...

in the deciding frame of the final, on a re-spotted black. The final-day results are given below.

Event 5

The fifth event took place at Landywood Snooker Club,

Walsall Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield. Walsall is t ...

, from 9 to 11 December 2022. Daniel Wells beat Sydney Wilson 5–2 in the final. Wells lost the first three frames of his semi-final against

Michael Georgiou Michael Georgiou (born 18 January 1988) is a British-Cypriot former professional snooker player from Forest Hill. He is a practice partner of Igor Figueiredo and Hammad Miah, who practises at Whetstone Snooker Club. In 2018, Georgiou won his fi ...

, but won the next four to reach the final. The final-day results are given below.

Event 6

The sixth event took place at the Northern Snooker Centre,

Leeds Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the thi ...

, from 6 to 8 January 2023. The final was between

and

. Both had won a Q Tour event earlier in the season and the points situation was such that the winner of the match would head the rankings and gain a place on the main tour for the following season. In the final O'Donnell won the opening frame with a break of 142 and went on to win the match by five frames to one. The final-day results are given below.

Playoff

The final event, the WPBSA Q Tour Playoff, is being held at the Q House Snooker Academy in

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington under ...

on 4 and 5 March. The event sees the 16 highest ranked players, excluding the player already qualified for the main tour, compete for a further place on that tour. Daniel Wells withdrew on medical grounds and was replaced by

Florian Nüßle Florian Nüßle (born 18 December 2001) is an Austrian snooker player from Graz. In 2017, aged 16, he became his country's youngest national snooker champion. Career National tournaments Florian Nüßle became interested in snooker as a chi ...

. Two rounds will be played each day with matches over 7 frames except for the final which will be over 9 frames. The draw was seeded, based on the final rankings. Ashley Carty beat

5–2 in the final. Carty lost the first three frames in his opening match against Farakh Ajaib but recovered to win 4–3. He was two frames down in his semi-final match against top seed

but again won four frames in a row to win 4–2.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2022-23 Q Tour Q Tour