Sydney Wilson (born 6 April 1990 in
Southend-on-Sea
Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north ...
,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
) is an English former professional
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 ...
player.
Career
Wilson began playing snooker at the age of three with his father teaching him the basics of the game. He later took lessons from
Vic Harris, a former professional player. As a teenager, he beat most of the best players in his class and won several junior tournaments.
At 15, he began playing in the
Pontin's International Open Series
The International Open Series (often referred to as Pontins International Open Series or PIOS for sponsorship purposes), was a series of snooker tournaments that ran from the 2001/02 season until the 2009/10 season. It was originally called the ...
. He participated for five seasons with his best finish being a second round defeat in 2009. Due to a lack of financial opportunities he had to sell his own snooker table and could not afford to practice full-time.
In 2011 he played in
Q School for the first time, but could not get beyond the third round. In the
2011–12 season he took part in seven of the twelve tournaments in the
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 ...
.
The following year he won a match in the main rounds of a PTC for the first time with a 4–2 success over
Gerard Greene
Gerard Eamonn Greene (born 12 November 1973 in Chatham, Kent) is a Northern Irish professional snooker player. He represents Northern Ireland in international events, as his parents are from Belfast.
Greene has enjoyed moderate success in his ...
in the first event in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of t ...
. Wilson was knocked out 4–3 by
Dave Harold
David Harold (born 9 December 1966) is an English former professional snooker player from Stoke-on-Trent. He was known by the nicknames of "the Hard Man" and "the Stoke Potter" (conflating his home city's pottery industry and his profession of ...
in the second round. In Q School, he lost in the fourth round in the second and third events. His high Q School Order of Merit placing gave him entry into many ranking event qualifiers for the
2013–14 season, but he was unable to win a match.
Wilson made his debut at the venue stage of a ranking event at the
2014 Welsh Open and he led world number 11
Mark Allen 3–0 and made a break of 54 in the fourth frame. However, Allen responded by winning four successive frames to edge it 4–3, with Wilson stating afterwards that a kick in the fourth frame had ruined his chance of winning. He came within two wins of securing a professional tour card in the first event of Q School, but lost 4–3 to Duane Jones.
Wilson's only win during the
2014–15 season came at the
2015 German Masters
The 2015 German Masters (officially the 2015 Kreativ Dental German Masters) was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 4–8 February 2015 at the Tempodrom in Berlin, Germany. It was the sixth ranking event of the 2014/2 ...
when he defeated
Anthony Hamilton 5–3, before losing by a reverse of this scoreline to
Ryan Day. In the second round of the
first event
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
* World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
of Q School he defeated ex-professional
Marcus Campbell
Marcus Campbell (born 22 September 1972) is a Scottish former professional snooker player. He was ranked within the world's top 64 for 15 consecutive seasons.
Career
Campbell is most famous for whitewashing Stephen Hendry 9–0 in the 1998 ...
. Wilson won three more matches to reach the final round and beat
Chen Zhe
Chen Zhe (; born 28 February 1993) is a Chinese
former professional snooker player from Shanxi who won five matches at Q School in 2012 to earn a two-year card to play on the World Snooker Tour starting in the 2012–13 season. He is based in R ...
4–1 to seal his professional status for the first time. He has a two-year tour card starting with the
2015–16 season, with Wilson stating that his goal is to remain on tour. He won his first match on tour by beating
Oliver Brown 5–2 in the first round of the
2015 Australian Goldfields Open
The 2015 Australian Goldfields Open was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 29 June and 5 July 2015 at the Bendigo Stadium in Bendigo, Australia. It was the first ranking event of the 2015/2016 season.
Judd Trump ...
qualifiers, before losing 5–2 to
Jack Lisowski
Jack Adam 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 att ...
.
At the
UK Championship
The UK Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. It is one of snooker's prestigious Triple Crown events, along with the World Championship and the Masters. It is usually held at the Barbican Centre, York. Ronnie O'Sulliva ...
Wilson won a ranking event match at the venue stage for the first time in his career by seeing off
Michael White, who at world number 15 was ranked 100 places higher than Wilson. He lost 6–2 to
Mark Joyce
Mark Joyce (born 11 August 1983) is an English professional snooker player who lives in Walsall. He began his professional career by playing Challenge Tour in 2003. Joyce enjoyed an outstanding amateur career, winning the European Under-19 Cha ...
in the subsequent round. In the
German Masters
The German Masters is a professional Snooker world rankings, ranking snooker tournament held at the Tempodrom in Berlin, Germany since 2011. The 2021 event was held at Milton Keynes in England because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Zhao Xintong is ...
qualifiers,
Mike Dunn edged past Wilson 5–4 and by 86–79 points on the final black. Wilson defeated
Gerard Greene
Gerard Eamonn Greene (born 12 November 1973 in Chatham, Kent) is a Northern Irish professional snooker player. He represents Northern Ireland in international events, as his parents are from Belfast.
Greene has enjoyed moderate success in his ...
4–3 at the
Welsh Open, but lost 4–1 to
Matthew Selt
Matthew Selt (born 7 March 1985) is an English professional snooker player originally from Romford, east London and now living in Chelmsford, Essex. He qualified for the professional tour by finishing seventh on the Pontin's International Open ...
in the second round.
Wilson opened the
2016–17 season with 11 straight defeats, before beating
Dechawat Poomjaeng
Dechawat Poomjaeng ( ''Dechāwạt Phùmcæ̂ng'', born July 11, 1978) is a Thai professional snooker player.
Career
Early career
He won the 2010 IBSF World Snooker Championship in Damascus, Syria, defeating India's Pankaj Advani 10–7 in the ...
4–2 at the
Scottish Open. He was defeated 4–1 by
Liang Wenbo
Liang Wenbo (; born 25 March 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player based at the Oracle Snooker Club, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England. Liang, who plays left-handed, has reached one Triple Crown final, made three Masters appearances, and ...
in the second round. Wilson recorded a 10–6 victory over
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 competiti ...
in the first round of
World Championship
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
qualifying, before losing 10–7 to
Rory McLeod and was relegated from the tour after not getting past the third round of both Q School events.
Wilson has practiced in '' Stepfield Snooker Club '' in
Witham
Witham () is a town in the county of Essex in the East of England, with a population ( 2011 census) of 25,353. It is part of the District of Braintree and is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands between the city of Chelms ...
, where two-time World Championship runner-up
Ali Carter
Allister Carter (born 25 July 1979) is an English professional snooker player. He has twice been the World Championship runner-up, in 2008 and 2012, losing both finals to Ronnie O'Sullivan. He has won four ranking titles and briefly reached num ...
plays.
Performance and rankings timeline
References
External links
Statistics on Snooker.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Sydney
English snooker players
Sportspeople from Southend-on-Sea
1990 births
Living people