The 2023 World Grand Prix (officially the 2023 Duelbits World Grand Prix) 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 16 to 22 January 2023 at

The Centaur ''The Centaur'' is a novel by John Updike, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1963. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Portions of the novel first appeared in ''Esquire'' and ''The New Yorker''. Cheltenham Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the mo ...

, England. The eighth

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 snooker season The 2022–23 snooker season was a series of snooker tournaments played from June 2022 to May 2023. Players The World Snooker Tour in the 2022–23 season initially consisted of a field of 131 professional players, but later dropped to 130 w ...

, it preceded the 2023 Players Championship and the 2023 Tour Championship as the first of three events 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 ...

. Sponsored for the first time by cryptocurrency casino Duelbits, the tournament was broadcast by ITV domestically, 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 ...

in Europe, and by

Matchroom Sport Matchroom Sport is a UK-based sporting event promotions company founded by Barry Hearn and run by him and his son Eddie Hearn. It first came to attention in the sports of snooker and boxing and is also involved in pool (cue sports), pool, bowl ...

and other broadcasters internationally. The winner received £100,000 from a total prize fund of £380,000. The participants were the top 32 players on the one-year ranking list as it stood after the 2022 English Open.

Lu Ning Lu Ning (; born 1 January 1994 in Jilin) is a former professional snooker player from the People's Republic of China who, in 2023, was banned from professional competition for five years and four months after committing match-fixing offences. ...

was ineligible to compete after the sport's governing body suspended him amid a match-fixing investigation; his place went to David Gilbert. Four-time world champion

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 ...

failed to qualify after finishing at 54th place on the one-year list following the English Open. The defending champion was

Ronnie O'Sullivan Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan (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 m ...

, who defeated

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 ...

10–8 in the previous season's final. However, O'Sullivan lost 2–4 to

Noppon Saengkham Noppon Saengkham (; born 15 July 1992) is a Thai professional snooker player. Since turning professional in 2010, he has reached one ranking final (the 2023 Scottish Open) in which he finished as runner-up to Gary Wilson. Career Early years I ...

in the last 16. Facing

Judd Trump Judd Trump (born 20 August 1989) is an English professional snooker player who is a former List of World Snooker Championship winners, world champion and the current List of world number one snooker players, world number one. He is currently in ...

in the final,

Mark Allen Mark may refer to: In the Bible * Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark * Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels Currencies * Mark (currency), a currenc ...

won five consecutive frames to lead 7–2, but Trump won six of the next seven to tie the scores at 8–8. The match went to a deciding frame, where Allen clinched a 10–9 victory to win his ninth ranking title. It was Allen's third ranking tournament win of the season, following the 2022 Northern Ireland Open and

2022 UK Championship The 2022 UK Championship (officially the 2022 Cazoo UK Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 12 to 20 November 2022 at the York Barbican in York, England. The fifth Snooker world rankings, ranking event and fi ...

, and took him to a career-high of number three in the world rankings. Allen made the tournament's highest break of 141 in the 12th frame of the final.

Prize fund

The breakdown of prize money for the event is shown below: * Winner: £100,000 * Runner-up: £40,000 * Semi-final: £20,000 * Quarter-final: £12,500 * Last 16: £7,500 * Last 32: £5,000 * Highest break: £10,000 * Total: £380,000

Seeding list

The top 32 players on the one-year ranking list, up to and including the 2022 English Open, qualified for the tournament. Seedings were based on the order of the players in that list. The rankings are given below.

Tournament draw

Final

Century breaks

A total of 30 century breaks were made during the tournament. * 141, 133, 127, 105

* 140, 138, 117, 112, 108, 107

* 140, 100

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 ...

* 133

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 ...

* 131, 108, 102

Anthony McGill 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 ...

* 122, 104

* 121, 104, 100 Mark Williams * 117 Joe O'Connor * 113, 107 Sam Craigie * 109

* 108

* 107, 104

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 ...

* 102

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 ...

* 101 Ryan Day

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:World Grand Prix, 2023 2023 in snooker Sport in Cheltenham Snooker competitions in England Players Series January 2023 sports events in the United Kingdom 2023 in English sport