The first major of the snooker season starts tomorrow with the UK Championship. It should have been held at the Barbican Centre in York but with it long being apparent there would be no spectators it's been shifted to the Franchise Arena in Milton Keynes. In fact the entire season so far has been held in MK, what with it having an on site hotel and presumably being a lot cheaper than hiring theatres and the like. Hopefully none of the money is finding its way through to the football club. The Masters in January is currently slated to be the first tournament elsewhere and you can still buy tickets for it but whether it actually gets played at Ally Pally presumably depends on whatever batshit decisions the government makes over the coming weeks. There's been nothing in China at all, there's a block of weeks in the calendar in March for some potential Chinese tournaments but that feels unlikely to happen at the moment. There's a "national team championship" or something that started in China yesterday which is the first meaningful snooker to take place there.
Judd Trump has been the best player in the world over the last couple of years and has made a very strong start to the season - he's reached at least the semi finals of all five tournaments played and won the English Open beating Robertson in the final. Kyren Wilson won an interminable Championship League, Mark Selby took the European Masters. The Champion of Champions on ITV the other week was an excellent tournament which made headlines when Ronnie confronted Mark Allen and accused him of moving behind the shot. That didn't do Allen any harm as he went on to win both match and tournament.
Judd's currently facing Ronnie in the Northern Ireland Open final - the third consecutive season this has happened. Ronnie's going through one of his weird days and isn't conceding frames despite needing umpteen snookers (not the first time this week he's done that) though Judd currently leads 3-1. They can't meet in the UK final unfortunately as they're in the same half of the draw there.
Judd Trump has been the best player in the world over the last couple of years and has made a very strong start to the season - he's reached at least the semi finals of all five tournaments played and won the English Open beating Robertson in the final. Kyren Wilson won an interminable Championship League, Mark Selby took the European Masters. The Champion of Champions on ITV the other week was an excellent tournament which made headlines when Ronnie confronted Mark Allen and accused him of moving behind the shot. That didn't do Allen any harm as he went on to win both match and tournament.
Judd's currently facing Ronnie in the Northern Ireland Open final - the third consecutive season this has happened. Ronnie's going through one of his weird days and isn't conceding frames despite needing umpteen snookers (not the first time this week he's done that) though Judd currently leads 3-1. They can't meet in the UK final unfortunately as they're in the same half of the draw there.
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