The 2023 Players Championship (officially the 2023 Duelbits Players Championship) was a professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

tournament that took place from 20 to 26 February 2023 at the Aldersley Leisure Village in

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...

, England. The 12th

ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than", or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak ...

event of the 2022–23 season, it was the second event in the

Players Series The Players Series is a bonus competition for players who have earned the most money in a series of professional snooker tournaments. The series involves three events: the World Grand Prix, Players Championship and Tour Championship. It was es ...

, following the World Grand Prix and preceding the

Tour Championship The Tour Championship (stylized as the TOUR Championship) is a golf tournament that is part of the PGA Tour. It has historically been one of the final events of the PGA Tour season; prior to 2007, its field consisted exclusively of the top 30 ...

. Featuring the top 16 players on the one-year ranking list as it stood after the 2023 Welsh Open, the event was broadcast by

ITV Sport ITV Sport is the Broadcasting of sports events, sports department of ITV plc, which produces and presents sports programming for the ITV (TV network), ITV network and ITVX. The branding was originally introduced in 1985 as an umbrella title fo ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, by

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia, owned and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its WBD Sports unit, it operates two main channels—Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and by multiple other broadcasters internationally. The winner received £125,000 from a total prize fund of £385,000.

Neil Robertson Neil Alexander Robertson (born 11 February 1982) is an Australian professional snooker player, who is a former List of World Snooker Championship winners, world champion and former List of world number one snooker players, world number one. He ...

won the 2022 event, defeating

Barry Hawkins Barry Hawkins (born 23 April 1979) is an English professional snooker player from Ditton, Kent. He turned professional in 1996, but only rose to prominence in the 2004–05 snooker season when he reached the last 16 of the 2004 UK Championship, ...

10–5 in the final, but was unable to defend the title as he was ranked outside the top 16 on the one-year ranking list at the cutoff point.

Shaun Murphy Shaun Peter Murphy (born 10 August 1982) is an English professional snooker player who won the 2005 World Snooker Championship, 2005 World Championship and has completed the Triple Crown (snooker), Triple Crown. Nicknamed "The Magician", Murp ...

won the tournament, defeating

Ali Carter Allister Carter (born 25 July 1979) is an English professional snooker player. He has twice been a World Championship finalist, in 2008 and 2012, losing both finals to Ronnie O'Sullivan. He has won six ranking titles and briefly reached number t ...

10–4 in the final to claim the 10th ranking title of his career and his first ranking event win since the 2020 Welsh Open. Murphy also made the tournament's five largest , the highest of which was a 145 in the second frame of the final. Of the 23

century break In snooker, a century break (also century, sometimes called a ton) is a of 100 points or more, compiled in one to the table. A century break requires potting at least 25 consecutive balls, and the ability to score centuries is regarded as a m ...

s made at the event, Murphy compiled 11, breaking the previous tournament record of eight centuries set by

John Higgins John Higgins (born 18 May 1975) is a Scottish professional snooker player from Wishaw in North Lanarkshire. Since turning professional in 1992, he has won 33 ranking titles, placing him in third position on the List of snooker players by num ...

at the 2021 event.

Format

Prize fund

The event featured a prize pool of £385,000 with the winner receiving £125,000. The breakdown of prize money for the event is shown below: * Winner: £125,000 * Runner-up: £50,000 * Semi-final: £30,000 * Quarter-final: £15,000 * Last 16: £10,000 * Highest break: £10,000 * Total: £385,000

Seeding list

The seedings for the tournament were based on the one-year ranking list up to and including the 2023 Welsh Open.

Tournament draw

Results from the event are shown below. Players in bold denote match winners.

Final

Century breaks

There were 23

s made during the event. Murphy made the highest of the tournament, a 145 during the final. Of the 23, 11 were made by Murphy, including the five highest. * 145, 141, 137, 135, 133, 130, 112, 107, 105, 104, 103

* 132, 125 Joe O'Connor * 126

Ding Junhui Ding Junhui (; born 1 April 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport. Throughout his career, he has won 15 major ranking titles, including three UK Championships (2005 ...

* 122, 107

* 121, 104, 100

Kyren Wilson Kyren James Wilson (; born 23 December 1991) is an English professional snooker player from Kettering. He has won 10 ranking titles. Wilson made his professional tour debut in the 2010–11 snooker season, 2010–11 season after finishing fif ...

* 115 Gary Wilson * 104

Jack Lisowski 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 International Open Series, PIOS rankings. A left-handed player, he ...

* 102 Ryan Day * 100

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 2 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Players Championship , 2023 Players Championship Snooker competitions in England Players Series Sport in Wolverhampton February 2023 sports events in the United Kingdom Players Championship

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...