The WSF Championships will take place at the Ding Junhui Snooker Academy in Sheffield later this month.
The upcoming World Snooker Federation Championships will be one of the largest international snooker competitions staged in recent history with 319 individual players from 44 different countries set to compete for places on the World Snooker Tour.
To be held in Sheffield from 15-26 February 2022, the event will include two major mixed gender tournaments – the WSF Junior Championship (15-18 February) and the WSF Open Championship (19-26 February).
The winner of each competition will earn a two-year professional tour card from the 2022/23 season onward.
Junior Championship
The event will begin with the second staging of the WSF Junior Championship, open to players aged 17 or under up to and including 31 December 2021.
With 68 players entered – up from 56 in 2020 – the competition welcomes many of the world’s brightest young talents from 20 different countries including:
- Liam Davies – Former Q Tour Event Semi-Finalist
- Paul Deaville – 2021 WST English Open Last 16
- Anton Kazakov – Former Ukrainian National Champion
- Antoni Kowalski – Former Polish National Champion
- Robbie McGuigan – Youngest ever Northern Ireland Championship winner
- Ben Mertens – Youngest player to win a match at the professional World Championship
- Stan Moody – 2022 WST Shoot Out Last 64
- Bulcsú Révész – Former Hungarian National Championship winner
China’s Gao Yang won the WSF Junior Championship the last time it was staged in 2020.
Open Championship
Now set to start a day earlier on 19 February, the Open Championships have also seen an incredible number of entries with 280 players, representing 43 nations, set to contest the title won previously by Luo Honghao and Ashley Hugill.
The entry is significantly higher than the numbers in both 2018 (89) and 2020 (152) and is a diverse field with representation from all over the world, as well as leading players from the World Women’s Snooker Tour and World Disability Billiards and Snooker circuit.
Following the close of entries, it is now anticipated that the draw and format will be released no later than Thursday 10 February.
Follow all of the latest information from the WSF Championships in Sheffield via WPBSA SnookerScores from 15 February 2022.
Featured image credit: WSF
I think U18 is too young. It’s likely whoever qualifies will be blown away on the main tour, and it could harm them. It should be U21. There are many players aged 18-20 who are in a great position to benefit from getting on tour at this stage. Players under 18 have restrictions, such as with gambling sponsorship and VISAs (Gao Yang had to miss the German Masters).