The 2026 British Open final on Sunday will be contested between Mark Selby and Jak Jones at the Centaur in Cheltenham.
Both players reached the title-deciding affair after orchestrating 6-3 victories over their semi-final opponents on Saturday.
For Selby, his hard-fought triumph over Liam Highfield was expected, but a win for Jones over Judd Trump didn’t seem as likely.
The latter failed to reproduce the standard of his dominant quarter-final defeat of new world number one Zhao Xintong on Friday.
Jones took full advantage to advance to another ranking event final, his second of the 2026/27 season having already won the Championship League Snooker title at the start of the campaign.
After his surprise run to the final of the World Championship in 2024, the Welshman struggled for a long time for form and rarely threatened at the business end of events.
But securing a maiden trophy in July has seemingly transformed his confidence, and one of the biggest paydays of his career is now firmly within reach.
Even so, Jones will enter the 2026 British Open final as the obvious underdog for glory.
For Selby, the 2024 champion has also been in fine fettle this term with a lucrative triumph at the China Open in Taiyuan already under his belt.
In fact, collecting the £100,000 top prize here would take Selby to within striking distance of Zhao’s world number one position – underling his consistency over the last couple of years generally.
Selby began this week complaining of jet lag after making the long trip back from China, and he struggled to get through his opening three games in deciders.
But as has often been the case during his career, the 43 year-old has grown in stature the longer he has stayed in the running.
The showdown on Sunday represents a repeat of Selby’s first-round clash against Jones at the World Snooker Championship in April.
A 10-2 demolition job at the Crucible Theatre in Selby’s favour makes for ominous reading for Jones, and the 33 year-old has only beaten the four-time world champion once from eight previous attempts.
Logic points toward Selby lifting the Clive Everton Trophy for the second time, but few expected Jones to beat Trump.
The world number 31 has a knack of making games difficult for his opponents, albeit Selby is the master of the dark arts of the baize.
It promises to be an intriguing battle with the season’s fourth ranking crown up for grabs.
The 2026 British Open final between Mark Selby and Jak Jones will be played over 19 frames, with sessions commencing at 13:00 and 19:00 BST.
Featured photo credit: WST
Big chance for Jones to give his career a boost.
Or vis-a-vis the latter, i.e. boosting his career, maybe not (obviously it is a big chance).
You saw this recently with Robert Milkins: won a ranking title in 2022, then another in 2023, a year he performed so well he received a bonus for being the top player across 8 events — now he’s off the tour and struggling to get back on.
In another comment I said it takes a combination of snooker ability and mental toughness to rise about journeyman level in any sport — one can definitely become a better snooker player, meaning achieve better win/loss results, thru practice, maybe also changing tactics, e.g. instead of taking on a risky pot, play a professional safety and wait for an easier chance.
But if you look at the top 16, especially the T10 or T5, you see many of the same names there, year after year — the same is true in most individual sports.
So possessing the needed combination of ability and mental toughness seems to be innate to certain players — it’s intrinsic to them as individuals — meaning it appears to be largely genetic.
Definitely a semi-final Saturday for those who love a grind. The play was almost continuous for ten straight hours. A bold idea by Highfield to approach the match by trying to outdo Selby in a battle of attrition.
If you count the British Open as beginning in 1985, Jak Jones becomes the third Welshman after Mark Williams and Ryan Day to make a British Open final.
Some titbits from this weeks’ British Open. This year the British Open took place before the English Open. Last year, both Jak Jones and Mark Selby ended their run in the English Open at the semi finals. During this British Open Mark Selby is ranked 4th and Jak Jones is ranked 31.
Prior to the start of the tournament, Jak Jones noticed a discrepancy in his first match and it took him to make a phone call to discovery which time was the right time.
Prior to the tournament Mark Selby among other players argued that tournament directors did not take any consideration about those returning late from China and suffering with jet lag.