He might have been slightly disappointed with his haul of titles last season, but Neil Robertson has made a winning start to the 2014/15 campaign by successfully defending his Wuxi Classic today.
He was to be pushed all the way by friend Joe Perry, who fought back from 8-6 down to lead 9-8, but it was the Australian who would take the final two frames to secure a tenth ranking event title.
Three days in to the Wuxi Classic and we are down to the last 16 stage, with world champion Mark Selby the most notable casualty so far, not withstanding Ding’s qualifying exit last month in Gloucester.
Click below for a round-up of the main stories so far, as well as a reminder of all of the useful links to follow…
A brief line of news that came out on World Snooker’s Twitter feed yesterday was that Swiss starlet Alexander Ursenbacher has been forced to withdraw from the upcoming Wuxi Classic due to visa problems…
Although I did post this earlier in the week as part of my general round-up of the latest bits of news on the snooker circuit, for those who may have missed it tucked away in that article, the fixtures for the wildcard stages of the season’s first two ranking events have now been confirmed…
Following the conclusion of Q School and the qualifying events for the Wuxi Classic and Australian Goldfields Open, there are still another couple of weeks to go until professional snooker returns to our screens with the venue stages of Wuxi towards the end of the month.
That said, there have been a number of smaller news stories to come out during the last few days, so click below for a round-up of what you need to know…
Less than a week from now, the 2014/15 professional snooker season will begin in Gloucester with the qualifying events for the 2014 Wuxi Classic and Australian Goldfields Open events…
So it begins again. Less than a couple of weeks after Mark Selby’s Crucible triumph, the draw is now available for the first event of the new season, the 2014 Wuxi Classic, which you can view here at snookerorg.
While there are a few notable absentees, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Allen, Mark Davis and Pankaj Advani from the top 64 at first glance, otherwise there is a strong field as Neil Robertson looks to defend the title that he won 12 months ago.
It is unclear as to whether any of the three ‘invitations’ will be taking part (eg Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis or James Wattana), it would appear as though the spaces will be there should they want them, otherwise the places will be awarded to the best performing players at the ongoing Q School events.
Congratulations to Neil Robertson, who has today defeated John Higgins 10-7 to capture the 2013 Wuxi Classic in China. Coming back from 5-2 down in the opening session, the Australian won six frames in a row to turn the match in his favour and win back to back ranking event titles in China, following his victory at the China Open in March.
The victory sees Neil take home the top prize of £80,000, as well as 7,000 ranking points to consolidate his position as world number one, now some 7,320 points ahead of second placed Mark Selby in the latest projected seedings list.